No Sanctuary
by bravevulnerability
Summary: 'This isn't an adventure, it isn't fun. It's a nightmare. They're being hunted like foxes and there is no other option, no way to fight, to win. They can only run.' An AU twist on 6x22, Veritas. For Nadia.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Picks up immediately after Beckett is tortured in the hotel room scene in Veritas (6x22).

**For the wonderful Nadia.**

* * *

><p><em>"You stand with your hand on my waist line<br>It's a scene and we're out here in plain sight  
>I can hear them whisper as we pass by<br>It's a bad sign, bad sign"_

_-I Know Places, Taylor Swift_

* * *

><p>The blood smeared on the wall is the first thing he sees when he reaches the top of the stairwell. Bile rises in his throat, dread clawing his insides like talons; he just <em>knew <em>leaving her alone was a mistake.

His worst fears are confirmed when he finds her, still and lifeless on the dirty ground, the crimson stream of blood draining from her skull, coloring the carpet.

"Kate," he whispers in horror, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to get to her. "Oh, Kate. No, no-"

Her eyes flutter when he hovers above her, her brow furrowing in a wince when he sweeps his fingers through her hair and encounters the hot, red stickiness staining her scalp. She groans, quiet and painful when he tries to determine the extent of the wound, so he forces himself to save the examination for later, for when they're safe.

Rick scoops her from the floor as gently as he can, trying his best not to jostle her, and feels her cheek press hard to his shoulder once he secures his grip on her, her fingers squeezing at his neck.

"Castle."

His name is no more than an exhale against the fabric of his coat, relief lacing the two syllables just before he feels her go limp in his arms.

He breathes his own quick sigh of relief as he tightens his hold on her. When he had seen the blood, he had really thought… he was sure he had lost her. They've been through too much for it to end like this, over Bracken and this godforsaken case.

Castle braces himself before he starts towards the open doorway of their temporary hotel room, but it doesn't prepare him for the sight he encounters. The floor is littered with bodies, the grungy carpet soiled with blood and alcohol, glittering with glass shards, and what the hell had they _done _to her? What had she done to them?

Rick pushes the questions from his mind and skirts around the bodies to drape Kate across the still-made bed and trapezes his way to the bathroom, noting the broken whiskey bottle and the little white pill sitting on one of the dead men's chest. He should have been here sooner.

He steals a handful of towels from the bathroom and snags the chain with her rings from the edge of the sink, shoving them deep in his pant's pocket. Her skull is still bleeding, soaking the comforter with red, turning the entire room into a bloodbath. He wants to care for her now, retrieve the emergency first aid kit that's tucked away in their shared duffel and try to pick the glass he can see littering her hair from her skin, but there's just no time. Bracken sent men to kill her, it had to be Bracken, and he'll just send more when these two don't return.

Rick hefts her up with a new sense of urgency, hauls the duffel over his shoulder, and hurries from the hotel room, managing to pull the door shut behind them.

The sedan in the back parking lot is still ready and waiting for them when he finally gets her down the flight of hotel stairs that are doing a number on his bad knee after so many trips up and down. They're in a sketchy part of town and he had half expected for the nondescript grey sedan to be missing when he returned from retrieving Kate, but it still waits, running and prepared to take them as far as they can go.

They don't have the luxury of lingering, but he takes the time to arrange Kate as comfortably as he can in the passenger seat once they're both in the vehicle, pillowing her head against the window with his coat, making another quick, unsatisfying check of her head wound. The glass shimmering amidst the blood has his stomach in knots, but when he attempts to remove a single shard from her hair, her whimper of pain has him retracting his hand with a wince of his own. But she doesn't wake.

Her breath reeks of alcohol, hard liquor that he knows she refrains from indulging in for a reason. He squeezes his eyes against the imagery his mind conjures up while he buckles her in.

As soon as they're out of New York, or at least far enough away from the city, he'll stop somewhere, clean up her head and check her for anymore injuries that may not yet be visible, maybe get something in her stomach that will help sober her up and ease the inevitable hangover to come.

For a split second, while he was picking the car up from his 'friend', he had thought this would be an adventure for them. A mission, like spies – a new place, new identities, new lives. It had helped soften the panic lacing with adrenaline in his bloodstream, but this isn't an adventure, it isn't fun. It's a nightmare. They're being hunted like foxes and there is no other option, no way to fight, to win. They can only run.

But it will be okay, she'll be okay, _they_ will be okay. He repeats the words like a mantra for nearly two hours straight, but the tightness of his chest fails to loosen, the pounding of his heart fails to ease, and he fails to believe his own words.

* * *

><p>He pulls over sooner than he would like, but he can't stand the blood oozing from her skull anymore, the way it continued trickling from her scalp, staining her ear, her throat, a sickening shade of crimson coloring his vision throughout their drive north.<p>

He keeps her locked in the sedan while he rushes through a mostly empty convenience store, purchasing two of every essential item he can think of, his bundle of food and medical goods causing the teenage cashier to arch his brow in curiosity, but he doesn't ask any questions. Thank god for no questions. He doesn't think he could form a coherent answer right now if his life depended on it.

Dreams and whimpers of agony had plagued her through the near two hours he had forced himself to drive, mewls that caused his heart to splinter filling the car, but those pitiful sounds of pain were nothing in comparison to the cry of torment she lets out when he opens the passenger door, unbuckles and cradles her body in one of his arms, and gingerly begins extracting the pieces of glass from her scalp in a seedy parking lot.

He feels when she finally jolts awake, her body jerking against his chest, her hands curling into fists at his side.

"I'm sorry," he whispers against the clammy skin of her forehead, her body still tensing against the sting of pain, but relaxing just a fraction at the sound of his voice. He adjusts her slightly, using the dim shine of the car's dome light to see and the darkness around them to shield.

It takes at least ten minutes for him to feel satisfied that the glass is gone and his neck is wet with tears she blinked against by the time he's finally done and blotting her skull with a wet towel. After parting her hair, he can locate where the bottle struck her, where all the blood is seeping from, and an unexpected surge of anger floods his bloodstream.

"Castle," she rasps, forehead pressing harder against his chin, fingers tightening in his shirt.

"I know, love," he tries to soothe, rubbing her back, but she shakes her head, pushing on his chest.

"Castle," she gasps as he pulls back, panic instinctually flaring in his chest. "Rick - have to-"

He helps her lean forward from the seat just in time, bands an arm around her as she gags and chokes through the alcohol forcing its way back up her throat. Castle scrapes her hair back and keeps her from tipping forward as she heaves and gasps around the beginnings of a sob.

"No, shh, you're okay, Kate," he promises her, wiping her mouth with the clean edge of the bloodstained towel. "Just get it all out."

"Killed them," she rasps, coughing over the last of the vomit. "Wouldn't leave you. Wouldn't let them win."

Pride spreads in his chest as he guides her back into a sitting position in the car.

"They're not going to win," he assures her, digging in the plastic bag at her feet and unscrewing the cap from the bottle of ginger ale he bought from the store.

"Where're we going?" she slurs, nodding unsteadily when he offers her a sip of the drink.

"I know you don't want to run, but just for now, we're going away."

Her eyes are dark, hazy, and he doesn't expect her to comprehend much of what he's saying right now, but for just a moment, her gaze focuses on him and decision seems to settle in her eyes.

"For you, for this," she mumbles, brushing her hand over the fingers splayed over her knee. "I don't mind running."


	2. Chapter 2

_"Something happens when everybody finds out_  
><em>See the vultures circling dark clouds<em>  
><em>Love's a fragile little flame, it could burn out<em>  
><em>It could burn out"<em>

* * *

><p>The next time she wakes, the sun is breaching the horizon and they're halfway through Vermont. Her face still contorts into a wince with each movement, but her coherency has returned and she's able to keep down the small pack of crackers he offers her.<p>

She tells him what happened the night before in the hotel while he was gone, tells him about Bracken, about the men who were sent to kill her. Her hand covers his on the steering wheel when his knuckles go white.

"My ring," she whispers suddenly, bolting upright in her seat. "Castle, I left it in the bathroom. I-"

"No, I have it," he assures her quickly, maneuvering one of his hands to the inside pocket of his blazer and clutching his fingers around the metal chain.

She reaches for it with greedy hands when he offers it up to her, but her fingers don't immediately close around her mother's ring like he'd expected them to. Instead, they curl around the platinum engagement ring, her thumb stroking over the diamonds with a reverence that causes the vice around his heart to loosen.

"I really thought we were going to make it," she murmurs, biting her lip as the glossy sheen consumes her eyes. "I thought… we were supposed to…"

"Hey," he says softly, stealing one of her hands, bringing her knuckles to his lips. "We are going to make it."

"We're disappearing," she mumbles, drawing her hand back to her lap and turning her gaze to the window. "We're not going to get married or go on our honeymoon, I'm not going to get justice for my mom and we're never going to - we'll never be safe. We'll never be at peace. All of our plans… everything is ruined."

"Kate-"

"Smith was right," she whispers, pulling one of her knees to her chest and fishing the bottle of Advil from the cup holder between them. "I'm radioactive."

He sighs while she downs two of the pills with the fresh water bottle he replaced her ginger ale with the night before and settles for splaying his hand on her bent knee, squeezing the bloodstained denim, but failing to regain her attention.

"You're not radioactive, Kate. We're still going to get married, just think of this as taking our honeymoon first."

She huffs a hollow hint of a chuckle, and drops her cheek to rest against the back of his hand.

"I wouldn't change it," he adds with a shrug. "Any of it. I don't care what happens or where we end up, as long as I have you."

He keeps his eyes on the road even when he feels hers finally shift to rest on him. Part of him is terrified, not of what lies ahead, but of her, of her tendency to push him away, to play the martyr and leave him to suffer the consequences of life without her.

"And we'll get Bracken, get justice for your mom, for everyone he's killed. We will. We just have to do this first. But I swear, Kate, he won't become president, won't get away with this. He won't win."

She's silent, still for a few long seconds, but then her hand slides beneath his on her knee, fingers twining while her lips sweep along his knuckles, and when he risks a glance at her, she surprises him with a smile, soft but genuine.

"Thank you, Castle."

He gives their intertwined fingers a tight squeeze.

"Always."

* * *

><p>Once they cross the border, they make their first stop in Canada at a supermarket outside of Montreal. She buys a new box of blonde hair dye, he finds them some actual food, and luckily, they go unnoticed. But the paranoia churns in his gut and has his head swiveling over his shoulder throughout every step they take. Kate tries to reassure him a few times, squeezing their clasped hands and keeping close to his side, but he still catches her doing the exact same anxious scans of every corner they turn.<p>

"This is just a stop," he explains on the way to the apartment he had set up for him. He's contacted every friend, called in every favor, used every resource he has. And it's paid off, so far.

Kate bites her lip, but nods as she thumbs her new passport. She's been fascinated with the contents of the go pack he brought with them ever since he went over her new identity with her before they crossed into Canada, but she hasn't said anything, only nodded along while he went through the story he had spun for them with the help of a retired CIA agent he had once consulted with for one of the older Derrick Storm novels.

"Alexis helped me with the name," he blurts, earning a quirked eyebrow from her. "Your name, I mean," he tries to explain, nodding towards the identification in her hand. "But if you don't like it-"

"Castle," she chuckles, reaching over to squeeze his knee and he deflates with an exhale. He's never had a problem naming characters in his books, but this was his fiancé, he couldn't just choose the first name that popped into his head. She deserved better than that, but he'd had so little time, so he had called his daughter and pathetically begged for her help. He's still surprised, and oh so grateful, about how helpful, how graceful, Alexis has truly been through this endeavor. "The name is fine. I'm surprised you didn't name me Nikki."

The laughter bubbles past his nerves and she offers him her first real smile since they fled New York, the suffocating tension finally draining from the car, allowing him to breathe just a little easier.

"So where do Rick Rodgers and Sara Houghton go from Canada?" she questions, drawing her knees up to her chest again, and he wonders if the scar on her side is aching after her scuffle with Bracken's men.

He grins and keeps his eyes on the highway, making sure not to miss their exit.

"Europe," he reveals, stealing a quick glance at her expressionless face. "You speak French?"

"Fluently."

"Good, you can teach me on the plane ride."

She hums and slips her ID back into the leather satchel, smoothing her hands over the small bag.

"I don't know, Castle. You're already pretty good at French in my opinion."

He coughs on a gasp and she rests her cheek against the seat as she laughs, but the soft melody of her laughter soon fades and she catches his eyes again with grim resignation.

"Alexis," she murmurs. "If she helped with my fake name, she knows too much."

"She knows everything," he confirms with a solemn nod. "She also knows what's at risk, for herself and us. She's smart, Kate. She'll be safe and when things die down, she'll take a trip to the French countryside for a summer."

"Castle." Her voice falters on his name, but he refuses to meet the grief, the guilt he knows will line her face. He believes what he told her, he believes in his daughter, knows he'll see her again. Just not yet.

"We're almost there," he says instead, searching the street for the apartment building he's had memorized since he paid the rent online just 24 hours ago. It's not the nicest place he could have found for them, but they're trying to lie low, even in the temporary home he bought them in France, they'll be doing everything possible to stay off the radar. Another country doesn't mean safety and he knows France won't be their final stop either. They'll roam Europe like tourists before they choose to settle and even then, he's been told by his old agent friend not to settle long.

_You'll never be safe. Not until the threat is neutralized._

"How did you do all of this in so little time?" she finally asks just as they come to a stop in front of the old brick building. It reminds him of the Brooklyn area in New York, a small comfort of home that he welcomes.

"Friends in high places, lots of coffee, no sleep," he shrugs, killing the engine and unlocking the doors with a hesitant press of his index finger.

Just exiting the car feels like a risk, but he pushes the door open with a deep breath and grabs their bag from the backseat. He meets Kate on the passenger side while she's easing her door open, their go pack and meager haul from the grocery store in her arms, but her first step onto the sidewalk has her staggering.

"I'm fine," she promises, clutching his biceps as he holds her up. "Just - just dizzy."

"I can carry you," he offers even through the adamant shaking of her head. "Kate, you haven't eaten and your head-"

"Is fine," she argues, urging him towards the building. "Let's just get inside."

He's so glad they're on the first floor.

Castle unlocks the front door with unsteady fingers, his heart pounding when the tumblers click into place and his hand closes around the doorknob. No one is hiding inside the apartment, no one is waiting to kill her behind the door, but he still wishes he had her backup piece ready in his hands. Just in case.

Kate sags against his side and he pushes the front door open. Silence and a sunlit living room greet them and Castle bands his arm around Beckett's waist as he guides her inside, kicking the door shut with his foot and leading her to the ugly brown couch that takes up half the space in the modest lounge area.

"No, bed," she whispers, dropping the grocery bag to the floor, but cradling the satchel to her chest, their entire lives reduced to a pack she refuses to let go of. "Please come to bed with me, Castle."

Rick extends his unoccupied arm towards the front door and clicks the locks into place, the deadbolt, and nudges her hip once he's sure they're locked in. They pass a tiny kitchenette on the short path to the bedroom, a bathroom that's barely big enough for two, and a closet he thinks must be for cleaning supplies. It's a depressing little place, but he doesn't care. They won't be here long enough for him to care, and besides, Kate seems happy enough as he drops their duffel in the bedroom doorway and collapses to the already made bed with her.

He's so thankful he paid extra to have the apartment furnished. Of course it's nothing he would have chosen, the colors and patterns all wrong, the bedspread Kate's crawling under a gaudy mustard yellow, but it's enough and he follows her beneath the comforter, the sheets, arranging himself around her and finally allowing himself to find rest.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Cause they got the cages, they got the boxes  
>And guns<br>They are the hunters, we are the foxes  
>And we run"<em>

* * *

><p>They stay cooped up in their apartment until the lacerations lining her head have scarred over and he's sure it's safe for her to dye her hair. The headaches still lance through her skull and her body is still painted in a mosaic of bruises, but the three days of sleep and recovery in an actual bed has brought them both back to acceptable health and it's time to move whether they want to or not.<p>

"You're beautiful," he says from behind her, lacing his arms around her waist, pressing her back to his chest as he meets her frowning eyes in the bathroom mirror.

"I don't like it," she sighs, tangling her fingers with his over her stomach nonetheless.

"I do. But then again, I think you'd look good with purple hair," he muses, shrugging against her and receiving a forced quirk of her lips in reply. "Honestly, Kate, you make it work."

"It's not even important," she mutters, shaking her head and stepping out of his arms. "I just - I wanted to feel... I wanted to be myself when I married you."

"Bleaching your hair hasn't changed you," he reasons, following her out into the bedroom.

"It's not just my hair, Rick. It's my name and the location and our life. You - you're the only thing that's staying the same."

"Is that not enough?" he asks softly, watching the painful expression on her face crumple.

"It's more than enough. You just deserved better," she whispers, but he denies it as soon as the words leave her lips.

"I want you," he states, watching her eyes flare with memory. "Any life with you is more than I could have asked for. It's hectic right now and we're still not in the clear yet, but we will be, and when we are I'm going to marry you. You, Kate, not Sara. And we'll find a place that will work as a home and my daughter will come stay with us and we'll work on the case with Ryan and Esposito over the phone and-"

She hushes him with the press of her lips, desperation and gratitude streaming from her mouth as she kisses him hard enough to bruise.

"I love you," she chokes out, kissing him again and again, coiling her arms around his neck and winding her fingers in his hair. "Too much, Castle, I can't-"

He silences her this time, pushes her back towards the bed and eases her down onto the comforter.

"It's enough," he swears, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth, nipping the tender flesh with his teeth and feeling her body arc beneath him. "You're enough."

* * *

><p>Kate hands him her neatly folded hoodie, the neck of the grey fabric still stained with blood, but he stuffs it in the duffel bag nonetheless. He only managed to grab maybe a week's worth of clothing for her from the loft and he reminds himself to stop by the local Target on the way out of town. It'll be a shift from the designer brands she's used to, but he knows the change of her clothing quality will be the least of her worries.<p>

She passes him a ziplock back next and his brow furrows questioningly at the sight of her father's watch trapped inside, along with both her mother's and her own engagement ring.

"It'll be easier at the airport," she murmurs in reply. "And makes me less vulnerable to recognition."

Castle sighs, zips up the shared suitcase that took them a matter of minutes to pack up, and drops the bag on the bed, making one final sweep of the apartment before they head out.

"Ready?" he asks as he emerges from the bathroom with an almost forgotten travel bottle of shampoo, but Kate doesn't answer him, her attention riveted to the crack in the blinds of the bedroom window.

"There's a black escalade outside. It's been parked there all morning and no one's gotten out," she murmurs, but when she meets his eyes, it's with spreading panic in her own.

Any other time and he would have feared she was being paranoid, but the dead weight of dread in his stomach tells him the paranoia holds truth. They've been hunted since they left New York and now they're trapped.

"Back door," he whispers, hauling the large duffle over his shoulder while she snatches the satchel with their money and IDs inside, slinging it across her chest and protecting it with the cover of her leather jacket.

"Castle," she breathes before he can start for their best chance at an escape.

A fleeting glance is all it takes when he meets her gaze, everything he doesn't want her to feel clouding her troubled eyes, and he hauls her against him in the doorway of a foreign bedroom they shared for three days.

"Partners," he growls, kissing her hard when her lips form around a response.

She moans, a sorrowful sound that has him gripping her too tightly.

"I love you," she rasps, clutching the collar of his shirt before pushing him towards the door, and he hates how she says it as if it could be the last time.

Kate forces him to get in position behind the door rather than letting him charge through their only exit. He doesn't like it, doesn't like hiding while she opens a door to her potential death, but he knows it's smarter so he waits on her count.

Her backup piece is holstered at his ankle and he withdraws it as her steady fingers unlock the door, silently easing it open.

For a moment, all is quiet, and he hears the soft intake of her breath, ready to tell him the coast is clear, but the click of a gun's safety being turned off shatters all prior hopes of a clean getaway.

"Detective Beckett, I presume," an unfamiliar voice fills the doorway and he tries not to move, tries to listen past the roar of blood in his ears and represses the urge to tackle the man he can hear standing directly in front of her. "You're a hard woman to find."

Castle clenches his fingers around the gun, cradling the Glock in his palms.

"This can go one of two ways, darlin'. You can get in the car quietly, ride back to us with New York without causing a ruckus," the man offers, his voice gruff, Southern, and menacing. "_Or _I will find your boyfriend, because we both know he ain't far off, put a bullet in his spine and make you watch as he dies a very painful death. Your choice."

"He's not here," Kate growls, not sounding the least bit intimidated. "And you're not taking me alive."

Rick bites his cheek at that. She's goading this man, buying time and probably trying to draw out whoever else may be in the car – the cowboy said _us _– but the thought of Kate dead is becoming an all too reoccurring nightmare.

The man sighs, loud and dramatic. "I figured you'd choose option two. Jacobs, bring the chloroform and the tape."

Kate backs her way into the apartment, keeping her eyes on the giant of a man following after her, and Castle waits until he hears the second set of footsteps to aim at the man going after Kate.

It's all so fast then. The leader of the two has Kate shoved into the wall, a hand around her throat, and she's screaming, gasping for air, scraping her nails over the backs of her captor's hands, catching skin, and for the first time in a long time, Castle sees red.

He fires, the bullet piercing straight between the shoulder blades, sending the man to his knees, dragging Kate down with him

"Behind you!"

Castle spins at her gasp of a warning, hits the man with the rifle center of mass before he can make it through the doorway. The echo of gunshots ring through his ears as he races for her, shoving the dead body from atop her, fluttering his fingers across the skin of her throat.

"More," she coughs, pointing towards the door. "Check for more."

Shit, he didn't even think – he scrambles to his feet, traipsing over the dead bodies covering their bedroom floor and peering around the doorway. He can see the black escalade from here; the windows are tinted, but the passenger door is ajar, a roll of duct tape on the sidewalk, and as he listens, he hears no signs of cavalry coming for their lost men.

"I think we're good," he decides, jogging back inside. Kate is checking the men's pockets, going through their phones with unsteady fingers.

"Bracken wanted me alive," she mumbles, reading over a text from the cowboy's phone. "He wanted them to bring me back so he could - could see the execution himself."

Castle snatches the phone from her hand, drops it to the ground and stomps hard enough to shatter the iPhone's screen.

"Rick," she whispers, encasing one of his hands in both of hers, the one with the gun. "Castle, look at me."

He can't. He can't look at her; he just killed two men, _killed _two people, to protect the woman he loves, to protect himself, to protect their life and everyone in it. And he's terrified that he'll have to do it again if Bracken wants her badly enough to have two men travel this far just to find her.

Castle allows her to ease the gun from his stiff fingers, allows her to clutch his hand and grab their bag, leading him out of the apartment that's been turned into a tomb.

* * *

><p>Kate forces him to ride in the passenger seat of their newly purchased vehicle, a used sedan similar to the last, but an older model and with different plates, and he can't fight her on it when his hands are still trembling.<p>

They make it to the airport without issue, Kate's speeding getting them there in half the time despite the traffic they encounter along the way, and Castle stares down at the tickets in his hands with scrutiny once they're parked in the airport's lot.

"Maybe we should change our course," he murmurs, more to himself than her.

The place he had bought for them in the south of France is private, secluded and not an easy place to find. He had made sure of that during his five hours of researching real estate. The stone house in the rural land outside one of the villages had not been for sale, only for rent, but Castle had managed to buy the owner out after offering him twice what the place was worth. But now he's worried it wasn't enough.

"Rick," she murmurs, reaching across the console to squeeze his bouncing knee. "We'll be here for about an hour, yeah?" He nods, reluctantly, and tries to regain his sense of composure, but every time he takes a deep breath, he smells the blood, the smoking gun- "We'll keep our eyes open, make sure we're not being followed by anyone else, and if we are, then we redirect our course. But for now, let's just stick to your plan."

"What if my plan isn't safe enough?" he grits out, his knee starting to tremble under her palm again. "They found us here, Kate. What's going to stop them from finding us anywhere else?"

She sighs and releases his knee. He listens to the click of her seatbelt, the shift of her body on the leather seat as she turns towards him.

"There are no guarantees, you know that just as well as I do," she says quietly and all he can do is nod, words crumbling like dust on his tongue. "But you gave us a chance, Castle. A better chance than we had in New York, and I believe in us. I believe that we can make it."

The unwavering confidence in her voice has him meeting her gaze, so fierce and determined, and he cups her jaw in his hand, cranes his neck to taste the power on her lips.

"Ready?" she murmurs, curling her fingers at his ear, stroking her thumb along the shell, and for a second, he can almost pretend that they're just going away for a vacation he never got to take her on. As if they're just headed on an adventure for the summer, or for their honeymoon.

Castle nods, kissing her one last time before reaching for the door.

"Ready."


	4. Chapter 4

_"Baby, I know places we won't be found _  
><em>And they'll be chasing their tails trying to track us down"<em>

* * *

><p>"Oh, Castle," she whispers, feeling the awe spread from her parted lips onto the rest of her face. "It's beautiful."<p>

"Yeah?" he murmurs, coming up behind her with the bags and placing a hand on the small of her back.

The stone house is like a fortress, standing tall and mighty in the brightness of the sun, sheets of ivy consuming the rock wall surrounding the miles of property that took them nearly three hours to reach by car after finally landing at the airport in Marseille. They were taking every precaution possible, but the near 20 hour flight had left her exhausted and the long drive that immediately followed had made her body sick with fatigue, but as Kate stands in awe of their new home, she is filled with the bubbling sensation of real hope for the first time since they left New York.

"Yeah," she echoes, taking his hand from her back to twine their fingers.

"It kinda reminded me of a castle," he muses, offering her a sly grin as he tugs her along the stone path embedded into the freshly cut grass at their feet.

She rolls her eyes but allows the curl of her lips for him, nudges his shoulder while they climb the dark grey steps that lead to the medieval-like wooden door that he has to dig in the dirt to produce a key for.

"All we need is a moat and drawbridge," she murmurs, pressing her smirk to his shoulder while he unlocks the front door.

His body exudes weariness, those three days of rest they accomplished in the Canadian apartment worth nothing now after his first fatal gunfight and the day's worth of travel. He had fallen asleep on the plane five hours into their flight and she had been relieved, so glad to see his face finally slack and at rest, but he had woken with a shout after only a handful of minutes, his eyes wide with horror and his hands scrambling for her.

Her fiancé had killed two men hardly 24 hours ago and it was steadily destroying him.

"There's a lake in the back," he tells her, heaving the front door open once the tumblers click into place. "We can go skinny dipping later if you'd like."

Kate bites her lip, shaking her head at him as he finally ushers her inside. The top row of her teeth pinning her bottom lip is the only thing that keeps her jaw from dropping.

After knowing Castle for so long, she's adjusted well to certain extravagancies – his loft, his home in the Hamptons, the expensive suites and reservations he's gotten for them in the past anytime they required overnight stay anywhere else – but this… this enchanting stone mansion he's bought for them deep in the south of rural France has stolen her breath and maybe her heart as well.

She's nearly died twice in the last week and now she's moving into a small paradise.

"C'mon," he smiles, so pleased with the approval painting her face. "Let's explore."

Kate allows Castle to lead her through the entirety of the three bedroom home, depositing their things in the upstairs master bedroom near the back of the house before taking her through the renovated country style kitchen, the two rustic bathrooms, and even the spacious attic they have no use for.

"We could always use it for a hideout," he shrugs, examining the door the camouflages into the ceiling. For a moment, she believes he's joking, but his face holds no traces of humor.

"C'mon, take me through the rest," she prompts, wanting his smile back so badly it aches.

"If we could play it right, I was thinking your dad could come visit sometime too," he adds when they pass one of the guest bedrooms on the first floor. He's been chattering throughout the tour even though this place is just as new to him as it is to her, and she knows it's the combination of nerves and excitement, of fear and hope, and she squeezes his fingers.

"I'd like that."

Their footsteps echo on the hardwood floors as he leads her to a set of glass doors just off the kitchen, holding it open for her, and following when she steps onto the stone patio, back into the sunlight.

"Wow," she breathes.

An endless stretch of hills and valleys paint the horizon for as far as the eye can see, a riot of green against the brilliant blue of the sky. Their house is atop a small hill that descends into a clearing covered in luscious grass and yellow wildflowers, a maze of trees and boulders littering the yard. The azure pool of the lake he spoke of is mere steps from the bottom of the hill and she's struck with memories of her father's cabin, of the lake access she had been so fond of since she was a child.

"Kate?" She was too busy marveling over the scenery to sense Castle's hesitance at her side and she turns towards him with her bottom lip between her teeth to control her smile, draws him in close by the grip she still has on his hand.

"It's perfect," she whispers, staring up at the man who loves her, loves her so much he was willing to give up his comfortable life in New York to bring her this whole new world to exist in.

He's beautiful in the sunlight, despite the wear of lines and agony carved into the skin of his face, and she lifts on her toes, dusts her lips to his jaw, his cheek, over the stain of purple beneath his eyes. Rick drapes his hands at her waist, eyes fluttering shut under the soft pressure of her lips, and she thinks for the first time in five days, he releases his first sigh of relief.

* * *

><p>Castle calls Alexis once they've unpacked their meager bags in the bedroom and she listens to his reassurances of their safety while she roams the room, trailing her fingers along the stone walls, over the thick, white floor length curtains adorning the window, burying her toes in the rug covering the chilly hardwood floors.<p>

She pauses at the sound of Castle's hesitation. "You want… okay, just make it short. I love you too, Pumpkin."

Kate freezes when he holds the phone out to her, but grabs it from his fingers, knowing they can't stay on the line long. They'll be watching Alexis, all of them – the police, Bracken's security, maybe even the Dragon himself.

She curls a fist at her stomach.

"Alexis?"

"Kate," the girl breathes, a surprising amount of relief to her voice. She had expected bitterness. "I know we can't talk, but I just wanted to know you were both okay."

Kate swallows hard and drops her forehead to the cold stone.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut against tears she's fought back for the last week. "I'm sorry this happened, that I dragged him - all of you - into this."

She senses Castle rise from the bed, but tenses her shoulders against him and listens to Alexis sigh on the other line.

"It's not your fault, Kate," Alexis murmurs, her voice soft, placating. "You didn't choose this, and I - I know that now, okay?"

Castle's hand spanning her waistline has her choking back a sob as she nods even though Alexis can't see her.

"Just be safe, both of you, that's all I'm asking for."

"We'll do our best," Kate promises. "And we'll see you soon. Bye, Alexis."

"Bye, Kate. Love you both."

The call ends and Kate cradles the phone to her chest, curling around it as the whimper crawls past her lips.

"It's okay," Castle murmurs, lacing his arms around her waist, pressing his lips to her nape. "She's okay. We're okay."

She wants to believe him.

Instead, she turns in his embrace and buries her face in his neck, focuses on the smell of his skin and the strength of his arms around her until she can make herself forget, if only for a moment, about the way Alexis's acceptance had shredded her heart.

"Okay," she finally echoes against the hollow of his throat. "We'll be okay."


	5. Chapter 5

_"__'Cause I know places w__e can hide_

_I know places"_

* * *

><p>Neither of them can sleep, ironically. The time change, the sporadic pieces of slumber they have managed to snag, the panic they both fight to keep at bay all playing a role in keeping the both of them wide awake in the king sized bed.<p>

"I'm not going to be good at this," she whispers, turning towards him in the bed, giving up all pretenses of resting and Castle does too, offering her his full attention. "On the plane, I actually thought - I felt like I was going to explode the farther away we flew," she confesses, feeling her chest tighten with that same feeling of oppression that had come alive on the plane.

"You want to fight," he surmises, no disappointment nor disagreement in his assessment, no judgment, just acknowledgment.

"I want you more," she breathes, watching his tired blue eyes fall from the pale moonlight slicing through the curtains to study her face. "I know in Canada, you were afraid I'd leave you."

"Kate," he sighs, but she inches closer, transferring her head to his pillow, sliding her knee between his.

"I know why," she assures him, stroking the unshaven line of his jaw, fingering the prickling beginnings of a beard. "And that's why I'm saying this." Kate takes a deep breath, nudging in closer to rest her forehead against his while she whispers the words, her promise to him. "You're my partner, but you're more than that, you're - you're everything to me, Castle. I was saving these for the wedding, but-"

"Kate, don't," he groans softly, curling an arm around her back, squeezing.

"The moment that I met you," she recites anyway, cradling the base of his skull in her palm, threading her fingers through his hair. "My life became extraordinary. You taught me to be my best self, and you're still teaching me, still turning every day into an adventure no matter how uncertain things may seem for us. And you're so strong, Castle, especially when I'm vulnerable, you keep me strong."

He rolls her over then, presses her into the mattress with the solid weight of his body over hers and the decisive seal of his lips on her mouth.

"Save the rest for the wedding, Kate," he breathes and when she looks up, his eyes are wet, threatened by tears that she wipes away before they can fall. "I'm going to marry you," he murmurs, brushing the hair from her face, the moonlight glowing around him, making him look angelic above her. "Nothing can keep me from marrying you."

Her lips quirk, the noose circling her lungs falling slack as he lowers himself to rest atop her, just resting, relishing in the peace of their first night within the walls of their own sanctuary.

"Is that offer to go skinny dipping still open?" she murmurs, breaking the serenity of silence and feeling her body finally flood with something other than fear and guilt.

Castle pushes up on his elbows, glancing down at her with an arched eyebrow and a surprised gleam in his eyes.

"You want to go skinny dipping?" he chuckles and she swats at his arm once for laughing at her before sitting up in the bed with him.

"You're the one who suggested it," she reminds him, shoving the goose down comforter from her waist and scooting towards the edge of the mattress, pushing her feet into the slippers Castle bought her at the airport with a smile. "And now you're not going to follow through?"

His gaze sparks with challenge as he follows suit, escaping from his side of the bed and meeting her at the bedroom door.

It's a rush of excitement tiptoeing down the stairs of the empty house, rushing ahead of him to reach the glass doors first and slip outside without him catching her. A breath of laughter escapes her as she kicks off her shoes at the patio, feeling him right behind her while she races into the cool blades of glass, jogging down the hill and shedding her pajamas as she goes.

His arm comes around her before she can touch the water and she turns in his embrace with another laugh, loud and uninhibited, winding her arms around his neck and pressing her naked chest to his. The moon and the stars shine above them and the ethereal gleam the sky casts upon him has her breath catching.

"Kate?" he questions, his smile fading already, all too easily at the slightest sign of distress, and she shakes her head against the fall of his lips, cradling his jaw in one of her palms and willing the curve of his mouth upwards with the brush of her thumb.

"It's just really beautiful out here," she whispers, watching with relief as he instantly relaxes against her.

"Yeah," he agrees with a grin, not taking his eyes off of her. "And the best part, no neighbors."

"Just us?" she asks, tugging down the cotton of her underwear, the last of her clothing, at his nod, and urging him to do the same.

"For miles," he confirms with a small smirk, kicking the garments to the side. "Unless you count the sheep that sometimes roam around here. The previous owner told me they can be an annoying set of freeloaders, but otherwise, it's just you and me."

Beckett grins and finds his hands, guiding him into the cold water of the lake with her, relishing in the squelch of mud between her toes and the cool laps of water embracing her the deeper they wade. The chill of the lake seeps into her skin, eliciting goosebumps along her flesh, but it's the heat of his body against hers that has a shiver spiraling down her spine.

"Well then," she hums, using the dark screen of the water at their chests to surprise him with the slide of her hands over his bare skin. "We should make the most of our time here."

Castle brightens at that even as his eyes shift a shade darker.

"We can treat it like a private getaway," he muses, arms slithering around her waist and she drifts forward, bumping her hips against his. "We could still be happy here."

She pauses at his words, no longer playful, but serious, hopeful, and Kate uses the buoyancy the water allows her to coil her legs around him, sighing with content when he decides to assist and lifts her in his arms.

"Castle," she murmurs, stroking her wet fingers through his hair, brushing her thumb over his temple where she's sure a constant string of headaches have been festering. "No matter where we are or why, I'll always be happy with you."

"Beckett," he sighs, as if he doesn't believe her, and she tightens the muscles of her thighs at his hips.

"I'm serious," she insists, cupping his worried face in her hands. "Castle, you're - you're the only thing in my life I'm sure of. You've almost always been that one constant I could depend on."

"Almost?" he huffs and she flicks his ear.

"The point," she continues, the fingers at his ear going soft, stroking the delicate shell. "I trust you, I love you, and that's not going to change, okay?"

She can't tell if it's the reflection of the water or actual tears shimmering in his eyes and he surges forward to kiss her before she can decipher it, but she doesn't protest, welcoming the warm haven of his mouth, moaning low in her throat at the welcome intrusion of his tongue slipping past the parted barrier of her lips.

Her body arches at the splay of his hands over her back, skating along the edges of her spine, sending the water rippling around them.

"I love you," he mumbles around the press of her mouth, the yearning of her tongue, and she gasps at the touch of his palm covering her expanding ribs, skating higher up to the sensitive path of her skin to cup her breast, skimming his thumb over the raised flesh of her scar.

"I know you do," she whispers, bowing forward to kiss him again. "I know you do."

After nearly two hours in the moonlit lake, they head back inside, dripping all over the floors and leaving two pairs of wet footprints on their way back upstairs. Castle coaxes her into the cozy little shower of their en suite bathroom and the refreshing spray of the hot water, the slick skin of his arms wrapping around her, has her purring with satisfaction, their nighttime activities having cleansed her mind. She knows the fear, the panic, will be back, that it will never actually leave, not for a long time, but for tonight, they're safe and she can't stop smiling at him.


	6. Chapter 6

_"Lights flash and we'll run for the fences_  
><em>Let them say what they want, we won't hear it<em>_"_

* * *

><p>"Will you just tell me where we're going?" she sighs, keeping close to his side as they meander through the cobblestone streets of the village, breathing in the fresh scent of bread and pastries when they bypass one of the bakeries.<p>

They come into the village once a week, twice at most, shopping for groceries and the occasional decoration for the house they're still making their own after six surprising months. Kate doesn't always come with him, their shared paranoia of being recognized sometimes keeping her from leaving the property for weeks at a time, but there's so much space, so much land to roam, that she doesn't mind being confined to their home most times.

"It's a surprise," he says for the third time since she's asked and she growls under her breath.

The village isn't very large and they spend only a few more minutes walking in comfortable silence before Castle is bringing them to a stop in the commune square, in front of the Mairie.

Kate shoots him a questioning look, but he only guides her inside the city hall-like establishment, speaking broken French to the man at the door. Something about documents, a scheduled appointment, and – did he just say _civil ceremony_?

"Castle, what did you do?" she whispers and he finally turns to her, cradling both of her hands in his.

"I wanted to do something special for your birthday," he murmurs, smoothing his thumbs over the concave bones of her wrists, but her heart is starting to pound, the blood rushing loud in her ears as one of his hands abandons her, reaching into his pocket and returning with two matching wedding bands. "I want to marry you, Kate. I want to call you my wife and I don't want to wait anymore."

The man comes back with paperwork, laying it all out carefully on the mahogany desk they're standing in front of, and shit that's the mayor. He's serious, this is real, and they're getting married right now.

"Rick-"

"If you don't want to do this," he husks, his voice low enough for only her to hear. "If you want to wait until we're back in the states, until we're… our old selves again," he shrugs. "I can do that, Kate. Whatever you want. But after what you said last month, I just thought…"

Oh – oh, she had said she wanted to call him her husband, hadn't she? They had been lounging in bed on a lazy Sunday morning and she had curled up against him, whispered the longing against the hollow, warm skin of his throat.

Kate bites her lip and leans into him, shaking her head.

"Okay," she breathes, watching the smile stretch wide across his lips, cracking his entire face open with light. "Marry me, Castle."

An hour later and she is officially Sara Rodgers.

* * *

><p>The simple gold band on her finger enraptures her for the entire day, holding her attention with ease on the way home, stolen only by the man at her side.<p>

Her husband.

Kate bites her lip and presses in closer to him, dropping a kiss to his bare shoulder while his arm curls around her. By the time they had finally made it back home, their first act as newlyweds had been to consummate their marriage, preferably in their bed, but they hadn't made it past the living room floor.

"Cold?" he murmurs, welcoming the drape of her leg at his thigh as she snuggles against his chest, an idiotic grin on her face, but she just can't help it. She's giddy with their three hours of marriage, drunk on the beauty of the tiny ceremony they had inadvertently shared with the town square and the devotion in his eyes as he had slid the ring onto her finger and whispered "I do".

"No," she hums even though the chill of the hardwood is seeping through the rug beneath them and the soft throw blanket covering them is doing very little to combat it. "You?"

"You're keeping me pretty warm," he admits on a chuckle and she nips at his clavicle, just to feel him shiver beneath her.

"Sure about that?"

"Calm down, Mrs. Rodgers, I need recovery time before I can do that again," he warns her and she laughs, lifting on her elbows to grin down at him.

"Mrs. Rodgers," she echoes, testing the name on her tongue. It doesn't sound quite as appealing as 'Mrs. Castle', but it doesn't sound wrong either.

"When all of this is over," he starts, raising one of his hands to her bare shoulder, curving his palm over the sculpted bone. "We'll get married for real, Kate, I promise, but I just-"

"This is real," she protests, defensive in her protection of their marriage as she sits up, brow furrowing with hurt when the weight of his words sinks in. "Isn't it?"

Castle follows her, using the connection of touch to keep her close.

"Of course it's real," he says quickly, squeezing her hip in reassurance. "I just meant… I want to be able to call you by your real name when I put a ring on your finger. I want my daughter standing with us, your dad walking you down the aisle, the wedding we were supposed to have."

She deflates a little at the jarring jerk back from bliss, back into reality, and nods her agreement.

"You're right," she murmurs, scraping a hand through her tousled hair and tugging the blanket up to her chest. "Rick and Sara Rodgers are just characters. It isn't real."

"No," he growls, huffing in exasperation before catching her chin when she turns to look away, gentle in his touch despite the sudden aggression in his voice. "That is not what I meant, Kate. Not at all. The names may not be real, but this-" He motions between them. "is and so was that ceremony. That wasn't just some ruse to add to the authenticity of our aliases."

Kate sighs and ducks her head, sliding her thumb over the gleaming gold of the ring on her finger, watching from behind the curtain of her hair as Castle's hand slips over hers, his own ring clinking softly with hers.

"You _are_ my wife, Kate. Now and even when all of this is over and we're back in New York."

"What if it's never over, Castle?" she questions, the fear that sticks with them like an unshakeable force twining around her chest, always constricting.

"Then we'll roam the entire world and I'll marry you in every country," he shrugs, but she knows he means it. He would marry her in every country under any name, and her lips quirk, the recently extinguished joy creeping back into her heart.

"Thank you," she says quietly, lifting her head, letting him see it all raw and open in her eyes. He hates it when she thanks him for much these days, for their life together, but he doesn't sigh or dispute with her now.

Castle's lips spread, a smile so tender it's contagious, and leans forward, knocking his forehead against hers, nudging her nose with his own.

"Toujours," he husks, the promise flowing from his mouth like silk, the one word of their new language he had memorized without trouble.

_Always._

* * *

><p>The call comes in a week later. The familiar number flashing across the screen of the burner phone instantly has her feeling nauseous. They only talk to Ryan and Esposito when necessary and the boys are never the ones to make the call.<p>

"What is it?" she answers, abandoning the dough in the kitchen to head for the sliding glass doors. She had been trying to bake bread, like the woman at the bakery they both liked had shown her last week, but now her chest is tight, her scar throbbing beneath her circling fingertips.

"He's moving forward in the campaign," Ryan replies, his voice sounding strained, worn. "He has a good chance of winning, Beck- Sara."

Kate wraps an arm around her middle, cradling the cage of her ribs, forcing the panic to stay inside.

"And he's looking for you again."

She freezes, her eyes going wide, the phone nearly slipping from her fingers.

"How do you know?" she mumbles, pressing her forehead against the glass of the doors, training her eyes on the blue of the lake, timing her breaths to the rhythm of the small waves.

"Esposito has been keeping track of him, close track. He managed to bribe one of the security officers, had a bug planted in his office. He wants you gone. As soon as possible."

"Does he know where I am?"

"No, he's still blind," Ryan assures her and she drags in another ragged breath. "But I still - I hate to tell you this, but I think you have to relocate."

The breathless sob rips its way from her throat unexpectedly and she has to lower herself to the floor as her knees buckle.

"I'm sorry," Ryan whispers and she can hear the sorrow he holds for her, for Castle, for all of it. "I'm so sorry. I wish it was safe enough for you to come back-"

"Why can't we?" she manages to get out, swiping furiously at her eyes. "I know there isn't enough evidence yet, but we could still fight this, we could still-"

"He's running for president," Ryan reminds her in a hushed tone. "His protection is stronger than ever. I want this over as badly as… almost as badly as you do," he corrects and she wants to cry, wants this conversation to be over so she can let go of the thin strip of control keeping her breakdown at bay. "We want you guys to come home. But he'll kill you the second you're back in the city. Both of you."

Kate presses her forehead to her bent knees. "I know he will."

"We'll work harder," Ryan promises her, voice alight with a spark of determination. "He won't become president. He won't."

"He won't," Kate echoes, because there's nothing else to say, but they both know with damning certainty that there is a good chance he _will._

Bracken will become president and they will never be able to take him down. They'll never be safe again.


	7. Chapter 7

_"__Loose lips sink ships all the damn time_

_Not this time"_

* * *

><p>Castle comes home from the market while she's still slumped against the glass door, tears still trekking steadily down her cheeks, and he doesn't even have to ask why.<p>

Esposito had phoned him while he was in the village, broke the news to him while he was buying more of the addictive bread from their favorite bakery. He'd had to stop in front of the display case of baked treats, clutching at his chest, scaring the staff that feared he was having a heart attack.

He thought he might be.

Bracken is rising to greater power, posing a greater threat to Kate, and they have to move. Just to be safe. But it kills her to run and he knows it, knows it grates against her every instinct to take flight over fight, but it's the only way he can keep her.

She doesn't like being carried, coddled, but he drops the bags of food on the floor of the foyer and comes for her, scoops her up instead. And she lets him, showing him just how bad it really is.

Castle carries her out onto the patio, arguably her favorite place of the entire property, and eases down onto the lounge chair she often drags out into the rows of flowers to lay beneath the sun. He doesn't speak, merely keeps his arms around her quivering body in his lap and watches the sun descend below the horizon.

"Your hair's turning brown again," he notices, thoughtless as he strokes a hand through the growing locks that have steadily become darker over the last few months. It's an interesting blend of subtle blonde, streaks of chestnut that he knows have come from her extended time in the sun, and the natural shade of chocolate brown all mixing together in the mane of her hair.

Kate sighs and captures the hand trailing through her hair, tangling their fingers to rest at her shoulder.

"When should I dye it back?"

It's been easy living in France, too easy. With the meager population, the lack of media and modern day society, neither of them have had to worry too severely about hiding their appearances and concealing their identities as they had in New York and Canada.

That has to change now. From what Esposito's told him, Bracken is turning his search for Kate into a full on manhunt. She's no longer a simple blip on the senator's radar, she's a target marked for inevitable death.

He won't let Bracken kill her. He's vowed to himself since the beginning of all of this that he would keep her alive and he doesn't care what he has to do, but it's a promise he refuses to break.

"Probably tonight. I booked us a flight for tomorrow morning."

Her free hand curls into a fist she presses into one of her eye sockets, a way to force the tears back, and he hates himself for it, hates the situation, hates Bracken.

God, how he hates William Bracken.

"Where to now?" she murmurs after a few minutes, once her breathing is under control and she no longer sounds so sorrowful, but still not quite accepting either as she wipes at her eyes. He knows she's grown to love their home here in France, but they've known from the start it was only temporary. He hadn't expected her reaction to leaving to be so… visceral, but then again, he knew none of this is solely about leaving their home.

"You know we own this place, right?" he says instead, cuddling her closer in the cooling night air, pressing a kiss to the top of her head when she curls in against him, and oh, she must be hurting. She only curls against him like this when she's truly breaking apart inside. "We'll come back."

"I just thought we'd have more time," she rasps, sighing as her eyes flutter closed. He feels it when she steels herself against the wave of her emotions, turning them off, compartmentalizing. "Where are we going now, Castle?"

"I thought I'd let you choose," he shrugs, stroking his fingers through her hair, huffing and curving his palm at her nape instead when she shakes him off.

"Give me some choices," she mumbles, lips brushing his collarbone through his t-shirt, and he shifts, thoughtful.

"Well, I have safe houses set up in three other countries so-"

Kate sits up, staring back at him with surprised eyes and a hitched brow. "_Three? _When did you-"

"As soon as we settled in here," he answers, strumming his fingers along her thigh. "I didn't know how long France would last, so I wanted to be prepared."

His wife rubs at her eyes, the simple band on her left hand shimmering in the light from the kitchen window before it comes to rest against his neck.

"If those places are anything like this, Castle… God, I can't imagine how much money-"

"That is the least of our concerns," he promises her, squeezing the muscle of her leg, still so strong and built. She goes for runs almost every single morning, scaling the edges of their property and always returning sweat soaked but with a refreshed smile on her lips.

It had terrified him the first time, sent him into a panic when he woke without her in the bed, only to scramble down the stairs to find her walking through the front door dressed in drenched exercise gear. She started leaving him notes on the nightstand after that, playful words in her elegant handwriting informing him of her whereabouts. He's kept them all, silly as it seems, has each little post it note tucked away in the inside cover of his notebook.

"We have enough and then some. Besides, once this is all over with, we'll have so many nice vacation spots, Beckett."

She laughs, but he can tell that it's pained, that she doesn't believe their current game of cat and mouse with Bracken will ever come to an end.

"Okay, so give me the list," she murmurs, shifting back against his side to watch the final traces of light succumb to the darkness of the night.

"Italy, Russia, and Prague."

"You know me well," she hums in appraisal and yeah, he does. He chose each place with her in mind, pictured her in each country, in each home he purchased before making each decision. She made every country, every space, seem appealing, but he knows Europe intrigues her and despite the circumstances, he's always hoped to make their forced travels somewhat fun for her. Or at least a little less miserable.

"I think I already know which one you'll pick too," he quips and Kate glances to him with a challenge flickering to life in her eyes.

"You think so?"

He nods, trying a little too hard to appear smug and teasing. She'll see through him, she always does, but he's trying, trying so hard to eradicate the sadness etched into her features and make her feel better. To make her happy, even if just for a moment.

"I know you're just dying to use your Russian accent again, Beckett."

* * *

><p>Crowds never bothered her much in the past, but after so long in seclusion, with no one but her husband and the occasional trip through the marketplace to suffice for human company, after being a target for too many months, anxiety crawls up her spine, wraps around her throat.<p>

"Hey," he murmurs, brow creasing when she flinches at his voice. "Talk to me, Kate."

She sighs and turns her back on the mill of people roaming the airport, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. She dyed it again it yesterday, back to the soft color of honey, erasing the strands of caramel from her locks.

"It's just - a lot," she shrugs, allowing him to take one of her jittery hands, twining their fingers tightly.

"I know what you mean," he nods, taking a deep breath as his eyes dart around the terminal lounge and it's then that she notices how tense he is, how his shoulders are hunched high and how he purposefully towers over her, defensive like a shield while his gaze continuously shifts from face to face in the crowd. Like foxes running from the wolves all over again.

The yearning to take him home, to hide away with him behind the stone walls of their French castle flares to life, beating against her chest like a ferocious beast needing out. She just wanted to go back to the place that had become home, to unpack their meager bags of possessions and remain in seclusion for the rest of their lives. The want almost crawls past her lips onto his cheek where she rests, breathing in the scent of his skin, just like it had when she had watched him lock their front door for the last time. She had almost begged to stay, almost tried to convince him and herself that it would be just as safe here as it would be anywhere else, but she knew it wasn't. Too many had memorized their faces and if Bracken or his men came looking and managed to find the small village, showed the people their photographs, they wouldn't have a hard time hunting them down.

"We're okay," Kate whispers, stepping in closer to him, urging him to straighten up even as she tugs his baseball cap down low over his eyes. "We're still safe, Rick."

Castle swallows, thickly, like there's a lump in his throat, and squeezes her fingers.

She wonders if this really ever does end, will the paranoia ever actually leave them?

As Castle jerks at the harsh sound of the intercom rattling to life, she finds that she already knows the answer.

* * *

><p>He's in line to board when he spots the familiar face in the crowd. He almost doesn't recognize him, but... but yeah, that <em>has<em> to be Richard Castle. The man has been out of the press for months now, yet here he is now, standing in a tiny airport in the south of France with a blonde model on his arm. Mystery solved.

He's surprised the author is making such an obvious attempt to hide in the shadows, to elude attention when he once sought it so often. He used to be on Page Six of the New York Ledger every other week.

Well, not since he'd begun dating that detective the tabloids had been speculating about his romantic involvement with for years beforehand. But after the engagement, it's like the guy had dropped off the face of the planet. No books, no appearances, and definitely no time in the papers.

The media had rumored that he ran away with the fugitive detective… what was her name? Beckett, he thinks, Detective Beckett. His family had remained silent on all of it, his daughter speaking out only once and claiming that her father had needed time out of the city to focus on writing, but he hadn't bought it, no one following the story had. But the woman at his side, whispering into his ear and pressing in close to his side looked nothing like the detective he remembered from the papers and the news reports.

It really wouldn't be too surprising if the writer had moved on, he had been an unashamed playboy once upon a time and after his fugitive detective went AWOL, it would make sense he'd seek another muse. Maybe Richard Castle really had disappeared for the sole purpose of focusing on writing, and apparently finding inspiration. Maybe the author is even starting a new series, forgetting all about Nikki Heat. Black Pawn, his publishing company, hadn't released a word about him since his disappearance from the social scene though, and talk of him in the papers had died down after a few weeks too.

Well, he could change that right now and earn a huge sum of money for it too.

Percy lifts his phone at a subtle angle, the professional camera in his carryon far too attention drawing, and snaps a couple of photos of the author with this new woman at his side, hands interlocked and whoa - is that a _wedding ring_?

Richard Castle ditched the detective, flew to another country, _and _got married? Percy may not write for the gossip column, but he's definitely found a story to take home with him.


	8. Chapter 8

_"J__ust grab my hand and don't ever drop it_

_My love_

_They are the hunters, we are the foxes_

_And we run"_

* * *

><p>Just as she suspected, he's a mess of jittery nerves on the plane - knee bouncing, foot tapping, hands twitching around the armrests - and she sighs, finally covers a set of the dancing fingers with her own after two straight hours of watching him fidget mercilessly.<p>

Castle's head jerks towards her, a sheepish look on his face once he realizes the reason behind her touch.

"Sorry," he murmurs, but Beckett shakes her head, an immediate dismissal of his unwanted apology.

"Don't be. Never apologize, for any of it," she murmurs, only loud enough for them to hear as she presses against the armrest to be closer. "Just tell me how to help."

She watches his Adam's apple bob while he thinks, his pupils still dark and dilated with the barely subdued panic that will likely fail to receded until they're locked up in the safety of their new home in Russia.

"Tell me about where we'll be living," she prompts, smoothing her thumb over his knuckles, the way he always does when he's trying to calm her down from one of her own panic attacks. "You said it was in the mountains?"

"Well, kinda," he nods, rubbing at his eyes when they blink a little too rapidly. "It's a fifteen hour drive to the Altai mountains, just outside of Nov-" He clears his throat when his lips stumble over the name of the Russian city. "Novosibirsk."

"So we're really moving to Siberia? When you said seclusion, you weren't joking," she mutters, grinning when a strangled noise that passes for a laugh escapes his lips.

"I figured we could stay there for a couple of months and then transfer to this apartment I got us in Nizhny Novgorod," he explains, his voice slowly but steadily flowing into its normal, smooth tone.

"Have you been practicing the city names?" she asks, impressed with his pronunciation, and he nods quickly, that proud little boy look sparking and filling up his eyes, washing out the hysteria.

"Google translate is a lifesaver," he grins and she laughs into his shoulder. "And I can always rely on you to teach me."

"That didn't do us too much good in France, babe," she reminds him, gripping his fingers a little too hard when they encounter a brief bout of turbulence.

Ten more hours, not including the layover they have in Munich, until they reach the Tolmachavo airport in Novosibirsk, Russia, and once they finally arrive, it'll be a similar process to their arrival in France. They land, grab their bags, take a taxi to the nearest car dealership, and then drive for a handful of hours to a secluded location.

Their first time making a transfer to one of the safe houses had been exhausting, but there had been an element of exhilaration to the journey. Castle had felt like a spy and it had amused her to watch him pretend to be his own goofy version of James Bond. It wouldn't be that way this time around.

"French is hard," he whines and Kate smirks at the petulance he rarely displays much anymore. Over the course of the last six years, she's watched him mature, but he never lost the childlike charm. Not like he has in the last six months.

"And you think Russian will be easy?" she counters, scratching her thumb along the rim of his wedding band.

He shrugs, but his shoulders remain tensed and hunched to his ears when the flight attendant passes by. Beckett bites her bottom lip and reaches for the pack at her feet, retrieving her tablet from the side pocket.

"Hey," she murmurs, placing the device in his lap. "I have a few books loaded on there if you want to read," she suggests, hoping to distract him from the flaring paranoia and inner turmoil that she's sure is raging inside of him, but he's already shaking his head.

"I should write something," Castle sighs, more to himself as his eyes fall to the messenger bag at his feet. She's seen him writing quite a bit in the last few weeks, always in the pages of his moleskin journal, never on a laptop anymore.

"Are you still in contact with Paula?"

"No," he answers without hesitation. "Paula, Gina, everyone is just as clueless, except for your dad, my mother, the boys, and Alexis. They're the only ones we can trust and I can't risk exposing us through anyone else."

"But what about Nikki and Rook?" she questions in a whisper, her heart slowly beginning to crumble in on itself, atrophying. Not only has she taken him away from his life, but she's taken his career, his passion, from him as well. "Castle, what about the books? Your contracts and-"

"Kate." His hand slips from beneath hers to rise and curl at the back of her neck, thumb sweeping over the top of her vertebrae. "Nikki and Rook aren't going anywhere. Maybe once we're settled somewhere, I'll get in touch with someone from Black Pawn, work something out, but for now, I'm just going to keep writing. If not for anyone else, then for you."

She drops her head to his shoulder, taking a deep breath to calm the familiar swell of panic in her chest. The scent of his aftershave, the traces of baked bread and crisp pages, coffee grinds and wood, reminds her of home.

Breath comes easier.

"Can I read what you have now?" she asks, lifting her head, and Castle gives her a small smile while he nods, handing her the tablet while he takes his notebook from the carryon at his feet.

"You can read the adventures of Nikki and Rook while I play Angry Birds," he decides, trading the objects between them and her lips crack into a smile for him.

Kate holds the notebook to her chest as he powers on the handheld device, but she stretches across her seat to dust a kiss to his cheek before she opens his moleskin.

Castle glances to her in question, but she merely shakes her head. She doesn't have the words, but he seems to understand and reclaims her hand once more, holds tight to her fingers for the rest of the flight.

* * *

><p>He had never pictured them living in a log cabin. Granted, the two-story home was more like a log mansion and it had all of the modernized features he could ask for, but it was still quite the culture shock.<p>

The entire town is a culture shock.

"Castle." Rick turns in the middle of the kitchen at the sound of her voice. She's been exploring the place since they arrived, even after they had walked the house hand in hand. Kate had loved the place the moment they turned in the driveway, her dull irises coming alive at the sight of the wooden architecture that matches the majority of Suzdal, Russia - not their original destination, but still safe. For now.

Their flight had been a disaster. During their layover in Munich, their connecting flight to Novosibirsk had been delayed, and then cancelled altogether due to bad weather. He hadn't hesitated, hadn't allowed himself the chance to panic, booking the first flight to Moscow. Throughout their two hour wait time, he had researched smaller cities and towns on a phone he would have to discard before they boarded the plane. Suzdal was a near four hour drive from Moscow, a historic little town with a population of twelve thousand and a living but less than overwhelming existence of tourism. Exactly what he was looking for.

He found them a place they could rent for a month online, used one of the credit cards he had on hand under a fake name, and just fifteen minutes before they were due to board the plane, he was able to slump back against her in the terminal lounge and relax. Though, it wasn't easy knowing Kate was watching him with that clawing concern in her eyes, a look he's become all too accustomed to.

She had offered to drive from the airport after he caved and opted for a rental car instead of a taxi, too tired to find a dealership where they could purchase a more permanent vehicle, but the thought of sitting immobile with little to do while his wife took directions from the GPS had him feeling nauseous.

She had understood from a single look at him and handed over the keys to the sleek black Toyota SUV, and he was grateful, so grateful that she never judged him for the paranoia that had grown like a beast within the last 24 hours or the effects of the panic that sits upon both of their shoulders every single day. But it shouldn't surprise him, not when she's confessed to the exact same feelings and fears living inside of her.

Kate had slept during the last hour of the drive, but he had woken her once they reached the town, knowing she would want to see, and he'd been right. She had perked up, her eyes exploring the town with intrigue and simmering fascination that made him smile. Suzdal isn't a very modern area, still maintaining a Soviet-era undercurrent and the feel of a small village. The city itself is like a museum, the early Russian buildings all holding history, centuries of stories he can only imagine scattered through the town and waiting to be explored.

"Want to get married there next?" she had teased, flicking her eyes towards a magnificent cathedral in the distance, one of the many adorning the city, and he had smirked, reaching over to squeeze her knee while navigating around a horde of livestock roaming the streets.

Definitely not modernized.

"Don't tempt me," he'd warned and she had claimed his hand, bringing his knuckles to her lips for a nip of her teeth in response.

"You okay?" Kate asks, drawing him back to their small kitchen. She wanted to drive back into town tomorrow, roam the city, and he hadn't been able to deny her that, not when he was anxious to explore the quaint but beautiful little town as well.

Picturing themselves happy and thriving here was a dangerous idea. They needed to be more careful than they had ever been before, not out in plain sight, wandering through a city like tourists.

"I'm okay," he assures her, sweeping a stray strand of hair that's escaped from her ponytail behind her ear. "You like the house?"

"It's different," she muses, stepping in closer and hooking her fingers in his belt loops. "I like the bathroom a lot."

A laugh escapes his lips. "The bathroom?"

"It's the only room that isn't made of wood," she reminds him with a laughing grin of her own.

She did have a point. Every inch of their current home was covered in the log cabin style - the walls, the floor, even the furniture crafted from logs and smoothly carved wood.

"We can redecorate, right?" he whispers, staring at the wooden benches surrounding the dining table with an undisguised mixture of disgust and horror.

Kate chuckles as she nods and tugs on his belt loops.

"Definitely. But for now, I think we should test out the bed."

He arches an eyebrow at her, allowing her to guide him towards the stairs and feeling the final vestiges of his built up distress fade away.

"Ah Beckett, always making me feel so at home."

"I do what I can," she murmurs, throwing him a wink over her shoulder and a playful smile that has her tongue pressing to the barrier of her teeth. His favorite smile.

She presses him down onto the soft, unmade bed moments later, settling atop him and feathering her hands under his shirt, heating his skin with her touch while her mouth over his steals his breath.

"Mm, I love you," he murmurs around her tongue before she can render him totally speechless and Kate's eyes meet his with concern, but he doesn't want that, doesn't want every confession of his love for her to feel like last words. "I just - wanted you to know."

She shakes her head and lowers her mouth to the exposed skin of his chest, dusting a kiss to the pounding of his heart.

"I know you do," she mumbles into his flesh, sending a shiver rippling down his spine that has a wicked grin spreading across her lips, an interesting contrast to the tenderness in her eyes when she lifts her head. "I always know. And I love you back."

For the rest of the night, he forgets about everything except the taste of her skin and the dance of her body over his. He forgets about everything but her.

* * *

><p>Their home in Russia is just as nice as the one in France, beautiful and as secluded as they could find in the outskirts of Suzdal, but not yet their own after only three weeks of living. There was no way to determine how long they would be here, if it would be another six months, less or longer, but she secretly looked forward to making this place a temporary home for them, just like they did in France. It keeps her mind off of things, focusing on something simple like what color their couch should be or what kind of rug should adorn the living room floor, and lately, while she's been browsing for furniture online, she's fallen into the habit of marking her favorite pieces. For when they find a home they won't have to abandon.<p>

The knock on the door has her sitting up from her lounging position on the couch and placing the laptop on the nearby coffee table. Castle's already forgotten his keys to the place once, so she doesn't hesitate in rising with a smirk stretching her lips. She had been feeling sick all morning and even though they had been to the market only a few days ago, Rick had offered to return today to find her some medication for the unrelenting nausea. She would have gone with him if it weren't for the growing queasiness that threatens to send her light breakfast up her throat; she always has a good time when they venture into town.

The locals had welcomed her from the first day, smiling with excitement when she had spoken the native tongue with ease, laughing at Castle when he made an attempt to do the same. Unfortunately, the Russian translation app on his phone could only aid him so much.

Kate pads towards the front door, bare feet freezing over the hardwood floors, and curls her fingers around the handle of the heavy wooden door, expecting her husband to be on the other side.

But a glance through the peephole tells her otherwise and her entire body goes stiff. The unwanted visitors on the other side must sense her hesitation, probably having heard her approach, and she scrambles for the deadbolt, but it's too late, and then the door is swinging open.

"Well, Detective Beckett. It's about time."


	9. Chapter 9

_"They take their shots, but we're bulletproof,_

_And you know for me, it's always you"_

* * *

><p>She's immediately shoving the door with her shoulder, trying to keep Bracken and his two lackeys from entering, but she's clearly outnumbered and the three push inside with little trouble, shoving her backwards, almost sending her to her knees with the force.<p>

Kate makes a break for the kitchen, going for the gun taped beneath the sink, but she's caught in a matter of seconds, rough hands closing around her arms, another around her throat, bruising her biceps and shoulders, cutting off her airway.

"Hold her still," she hears Senator Bracken command and the hands around her arms clamp down harder, jerking her arms behind her back and - _fuck_, the burly man on her right may have just dislocated her shoulder. "Tie her up."

"Sir, we really don't have the time to-"

"I _said_ to tie her up," the senator repeats, cool but firm, and Kate lifts her eyes to see the man watching her intently, a sadistic grin on his face when he catches her gaze. "Detective Beckett and I are going to have a quick chat."

The guy on the right, the one who's put her shoulder in agony, secures his grip on her biceps, holding her steady while his partner retrieves one of the wooden chairs from the dining room area.

She's slammed down into the cherry wood, the movement jarring her body and rattling her bones. Kate flexes her muscles against the duct tape circling her ankles, securing her to the legs of the chair, but there's no way to instill any leverage when her hands are cuffed behind her back with sharp metal handcuffs.

"Thank you, boys," Bracken announces once she's fastened tightly to the chair in the middle of her living room with the man who killed her mother standing before her. "Toss the place now, will you? I want it to look like a violent dispute went down here."

The two men nod, sparing no more than a second glance in Beckett's direction before heading towards the stairs.

She bites the inside of her cheek at the sounds of belongings being thrown across rooms on the second floor, hoping fruitlessly that they avoid the bathroom and the unintentional secret she has hidden inside.

The blow to her face startles her, the closed first of Bracken's hand smashing into her cheek sending white spots exploding through her vision and the taste of blood filling her mouth. More of her own blood trickles from her cheek, lands on the knee of her jeans, and one quick glance at his hand reveals the extravagant ring on his middle finger that must have sliced through her skin.

"That's going to leave a nasty scar, isn't it?" he parrots, words similar to those she spoke to him nearly two years ago returning to haunt her.

Kate gathers enough blood and saliva within her mouth to spit the mixture. She hadn't been aiming for his shoe, but a tiny spark of amusement flares to life in her chest when she hit the mark without even trying.

"Is that all you've got?" she questions, ignoring the fiery throb of her cheek in favor of glaring up at him. He can destroy her face, use her as punching bag for as long as he likes; it buys her more time, consumes a portion of his energy, and as long as he doesn't venture lower… as long as he stays away from her stomach.

"You make the blonde look work," Bracken praises instead, tossing a newspaper article into her lap and Kate feels her heart sink as she flicks her eyes down, feigning disinterest while she scans the headline (_Rick Castle finally spotted in France with new muse?_), and takes in the photograph of her and Castle in the airport only one short month ago. "And you did a good job at disappearing too, truly impressive, but just short of good enough."

"Go to hell," she mutters, jerking her thigh as hard as her bindings will allow and sending the newspaper flipping to the ground.

"Congratulations by the way," he adds, as if she hasn't spoken, and her blood runs cold, but then Bracken snags the paper from the floor, gesturing to the visible ring on Castle's left hand in the grainy photo. "Seems that I missed the wedding, but you know, Kate, I'm glad you were able to marry him, to have some time to play wife before it all came to an end."

Her heartbeat picks up, pumping rage, the desire to fight fueling the fiery adrenaline already roaring through her veins.

"You'll die today," Bracken tells her with a pleasant smile, as if he's delivering another one of his campaign speeches. "And this time, I'm going to make sure I watch the life bleed out of you before I leave this place. I may even do it myself," he muses, slipping his hand inside his suit jacket and retrieving a switchblade that flips open with the press of his thumb to the ejector button. "I had wanted to use the same model knife Coonan had used to kill your mother. Poetic justice, you know?"

The blood rushing beneath her skin starts to boil and burn.

"But switchblades are so much more convenient," he informs her, admiring the weapon in his hand with a pleased smile.

"Thought you didn't like to get your hands dirty," she gets out, forcing herself to breathe steady and not to wince at the aching strain in her shoulders that seems to intensify with every passing second.

"I don't," Bracken sighs, polishing the blade with a silken, embroidered handkerchief from his front pocket, a tactic to intimate her she knows, but she doesn't blink. "But you're special, Kate. And you just won't quit, you won't die." He shakes his head, frustration simmering along the surface, but remaining carefully hidden beneath the calm and collected mask of a practiced politician. "So I'm going to kill you, let you bleed to death alone, just like she did." He's goading her, trying to get a final rise out of her, but she merely squares her jaw. Hard enough to feel her teeth grind. "And then when the writer comes back, after he finds you bloody and cold on this floor, I'll have one of my friends here kill him too."

She jerks against the restraints of the handcuffs digging into her wrists at that, unable to control the reaction, the anger that pours like gasoline upon wildfire through her blood.

The metal cuts into her skin, holding her to the chair and rubbing her flesh raw, scraping over the delicate bones of her wrists.

"Think of it this way," Bracken continues on with a grin, bending forward to meet her eyes. "If there is such a thing as an afterlife, you'll have both your mommy and your husband at your side."

The chair moves with her when she tries to lunge and Bracken slaps her for it, hard enough to have brutal heat and more flaring, unbearable agony spreading along her cheek.

"But the saddest part, in my humble opinion, is that we could have avoided all of this." Bracken tilts his head to one side, feigning a look of true disappointment. "If you would have just let this go, I would have let you live. I would have _spared _you."

Bracken lifts the knife, skimming the tip of the blade along her jaw.

"We could have even come to a peaceful agreement, a more permanent version of our last little deal."

"I would rather die," she growls, feeling the cool steel of the knife break the skin near her jugular.

"It's your lucky day then."

Bracken draws the knife back and her stomach clenches at the streak of crimson along the edge of the blade, trickling forward to drip onto the fabric of her jeans, creating a growing stain upon the denim.

"Are you afraid yet, Detective Beckett?"

Kate looks him straight in the eye, dull blue irises alive with subdued hatred for her, and she feels the corner of her mouth twitch upwards.

"No."

A mirthless laugh leaves the senator's lips just as he leans in closer.

"Defiant little bitch," he sighs, tracing the blade down lower along her side, but just as she starts to internally panic-

"The only person who should be afraid is you, Bracken."

Kate jerks at the sound of his voice, her gaze darting over the Bracken's shoulder to see her husband behind him, her backup piece in his hand.

"Castle!"

His name breaches her lips as the knife digs into her side, twists, and she gasps, can't find the breath to cry out from the ripples of pain that swell sharp and quick, threatening to consume and drag her under.

* * *

><p>This time when he takes another man's life, there is no hesitation. No sorrow, no guilt, no grief. Only his wife.<p>

The echo of gunfire fills their once peaceful home the second the knife pierces her skin. Bracken crumples in front of her, falling to bleed out at her feet, the irony satisfying and sickening all at once. Castle strides forward, jerking the senator's body away, realizing the man is still alive.

"Can't win-" he chokes, his eyes wide and staring up at him, blood gurgling in his throat. "She can't win. Can't-"

Castle shoots him again, ends the man's life and ends all the suffering he's caused. The dragon finally slain.

Footsteps clomp down the stairs seconds later and it's de ja vu all over again when Rick aims the gun, relying on nothing more than the pure instinct of survival as he puts two rounds in each man's chest just as they breach the living room entryway.

Bracken's assistants drop to the floor, staining the clean hardwood with pools of crimson.

It's a little scary how good of a shot he's become.

But Castle wastes no time in mulling over what he's done or how vastly their time on the run has changed him, he can only think of Kate. Kate whose eyes are going dark as the blood continues to spill from her body. He rushes back to her, digging his phone from his pocket while he presses a palm over the blood seeping from below her ribcage, the same place her mother had been stabbed – the sadistic bastard – wincing at the tortured moan she releases at the pressure.

"Hold on, Kate, please, please just hold on for me."

A hot, slick layer of her blood is coating his hand in mere seconds, his palm doing far too little to staunch the bleeding, just like that fateful day in May nearly four years ago, and Castle quickly shrugs his button down from his shoulders, bundles up the fabric and replaces his palm with the blue material.

The police on the other line of the phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder are barking out words in Russian that he doesn't understand, so he drops his phone, focuses all of his attention on her and tries to blink away the tears blurring his vision. He had called the cops the moment he had pulled into the driveway and recognized the unmarked sedan, kept them on the line throughout every second that followed, but they aren't here yet and she doesn't have time.

"Castle," she breathes and he brushes a hand over her cheek, watching her eyes grow even hazier, fading out, and feeling the panic overtake him, finally swallowing him whole after all this time.

"Kate, don't leave me, don't-"

"Baby," she whispers, curling forward, the arms behind her back keeping her upright but causing her to release a tormented groan. "Don't - don't let our baby die, Castle."

He freezes, the fingers at her face tripping downwards, grazing over her flat stomach.

"Baby," he echoes in horror, and it's too similar, the way her lips offer him the slightest hint of a smile before her eyes fall shut.


	10. Chapter 10

_"In the dead of night, your eyes so green_  
><em>And I know for you, it's always me"<em>

* * *

><p>Elephants parade through her dreams, Montgomery making an appearance as well, back when she was still a rookie and his words held no meaning to her at the time, but now… Smith had spoke of a recording made by a former associate. Montgomery fits the role of that associate and he had spoken of a cassette recording all those years ago. It all adds up.<p>

There's a box of her mother's belongings at her old apartment, maybe moved into the loft by now, but nothing in that box would help her. Not when she's been through every item inside of it a thousand times over.

But there is one item of her mother's she never kept inside a box. A parade of ceramic statues she keeps on her desk, a figurine that has a secret compartment.

The elephants.

"Castle," she gasps, trying to sit up while the revelation is still fresh amidst the cobwebs of her clearing mind, but groaning when the upward motion has her side flaring with heat and agony.

He jerks to her side, hovering with brightened panic in his eyes and a gentle hand at her shoulder, easing her back down.

"Hey, hey Kate, don't try to move yet," he instructs softly. "Just try to stay still, okay?"

"Where are we?" she breathes, gritting her teeth through the ripples that burn and blaze through the entirety of her side. "What happened?"

"You don't remember?" Castle murmurs, his voice too grave, and she squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, ignoring the way those words send her spiraling backwards three years and forcing herself to think past the pain coursing through her veins.

"Bracken broke in," she rasps, the memories flooding in and making her wince. "Tied me up and-" Her eyes fly open, the hand unrestrained by an IV tripping down to her stomach.

"The baby's fine," he promises her, catching her hand before she can touch the bandages embracing her torso. "The doctor did an ultrasound and he can't see much, but - but our baby's still there."

The tears leak from the corners of her eyes and Castle uses his thumb to wipe them away, careful to avoid the pounding skin of her cheek, the bandage she can feel stretched just below her cheekbone, where she knows a scar will threaten to form.

"Bracken stabbed you in your left kidney," he continues to explain, one of his thumbs still stroking along her bruised flesh. "But the cops arrived with an ambulance quick enough to treat you before you lost too much blood. Before it became fatal."

His delivery is hollow, eyes lifeless and unseeing, as the depiction of her injuries and how they came to be seems to take him back to the horrific moment.

"How?" she croaks, because the last thing she remembers is his face and the river of blood coating his hands just before she fell into the painless sea of black.

"When I called the police, they tracked my phone," he explains, sweeping his thumb back and forth over her knuckles, still so soft and attentive for a man so ragged with grief. "It took awhile for them to find us considering our location, but they made it. You made it."

"Were you hurt?" she asks, greedily scanning her eyes over the body sitting in the chair at her bedside, searching for bloodstains that are not her own.

"No," he says quietly, his voice low, dark, and she clutches harder to the hand still tangled with hers.

"Castle," she murmurs. "What's wrong?"

His eyes fly up to her, incredulous and angry and glistening with unshed tears.

"What's _wrong_?" he chokes out. "You're lying in a hospital bed from a stab wound with a baby I didn't even know about inside of you-"

"I was waiting to tell you," she whispers, breathing past the lump in her throat. She knows how he feels about secrets, but her pregnancy was never supposed to be something she kept from him.

When she had begun to suspect the change after nearly two weeks of telltale signs and managed to sneak a pregnancy test into their basket during their trip to the local market only days earlier, she had been terrified. Bringing a baby into the world, into their unconventional life together, would have been a disaster. The last few months spent looking over their shoulders and expecting the worst at every corner have been rough, but to add another, more vulnerable person to the mix would have been a nightmare. A beautiful nightmare.

She had taken the test last night while he was sound asleep and the thin white stick had confirmed her fears. She was pregnant with his child and after a mental count of the days, she could even pinpoint when it must have happened, during their last night in France when they'd been a little desperate and a little too careless.

"I found out last night," she continues, watching some of the accusation in his eyes fade away at the news. "I - I'd wanted to surprise you," she chokes out, trying to get ahold of herself and work past the stupid drugs she knows have her emotions in even worse shambles. "I knew it was the worst possible timing, but I was still - I knew you'd be excited, just like I was when I found out."

The conflicting emotions shine bright in his eyes, the longing to show happiness at the news alive and thriving, but the pain, the sadness, still conquer.

"I shouldn't have left you," he murmurs, voice edging into a growl as he stands from the chair, pulling his hand from hers. "I left you alone and you nearly bled to death because of it. We're supposed to be partners and I-"

"Stop it," she growls back, clawing for the hand closest to the bed, relaxing just a fraction when he puts it back within reach and allows her to tangle their fingers, reclaiming the lifeline of his touch. "They would have killed you if you'd been there, don't you see that?"

But he looks away, just as stubborn and as stupid as she's always been.

"You had the element of surprise, Castle, and it saved us both. You got there in time and that's all that matters."

His gaze is trained on the wall, but his lip starts to quiver, his face threatening to crumble, and she uses what little strength she has to tug on his arm, wanting so badly to invite him into the bed with her, but she isn't sure she could move to make enough room for him.

"I killed those men," he whispers suddenly, collapsing onto the hospital bed near her hip. "Killed Bracken. And I didn't even care. I didn't care, Kate."

He looks so helpless when he turns to her, so lost and afraid, like a confused little boy, and she wants to weep for him, for everything she's put him through, because no matter how many times he reassures her, they both know his life would be far less difficult, far less traumatic, without her.

"Am I - what does that make me?" he questions, rasps, barely audible. "What - what are we going to tell our baby? That his or her father is a murderer?"

"No," she snaps, but her eyes are burning. "You were protecting me," she argues, vehement, but her voice is hoarse with her sorrow for him and how desperate she feels to defend him, even from himself. "You were protecting our life and our family. You shot a man who put a knife in me and then shot the two others who would have killed you without hesitation. It was self-defense, Rick, and anyone could see that."

He nods, but the tears still cascade down his cheek and a noise of grief escapes her mouth. Castle leans forward, dipping his forehead to rest against the shoulder of her left, uninjured side, allowing her to cradle his head with her good arm. Allowing her to hold him as he cries, finally cries, silent tears into the skin of her neck.

* * *

><p>"Did you call your lawyer?" she murmurs once he's fallen still and silent beside her. He tried to move from her bed, return to the chair, but she had dug her fingernails into his forearm and he hadn't fought her, finding comfort in the bed instead and allowing her to do the same.<p>

Castle nods, twirling a limp strand of her hair around his index finger. "He doesn't feel confident handling this over the phone, so he's going to fly out tomorrow."

"And you haven't said a word to anyone? The police?"

"Kate, I can't even understand what the police are saying to _me _without a translator present," he huffs, the hollow hint of a laugh accompanying his words. "They tried to take me in-"

Her fingers clench around his arm, but he soothes her with the stroke of his hand through her hair, the locks turning oily by now she's sure, but she won't ask him to stop.

"That's when I got Barry on the phone and remembered there were security cameras in the house this time."

Her eyes snap towards him, absorbing the rueful smile.

"I turned them on before I left, just to be safe. The police are reviewing it all now."

"The whole - you got all of it on tape?" Beckett whispers, her yearning to view the footage herself flaring bright, but he gives her a look of reproach before she can even ask.

"We can use it in court, if we need to. We can use it to finally clear your name and plead self-defense if they try to convict me for murder."

"Shit, Castle," she breathes, the relief spreading through her bones, easing the throb radiating from her side, the mask of pain consuming her swollen face. They had evidence – real, solid evidence – and the evidence would finally set them free.

But Castle still looked chained.

"Rick," she murmurs, knowingly, and he glances down to her. "We're going to get past this. All of it."

"It just - it wasn't supposed to happen like this. I wanted - all I wanted was to keep you safe."

Her brow furrows, even though the action hurts. Her entire face _hurts. _"And you think you didn't accomplish that?"

"He was never supposed to touch you, never supposed to find us. And that fucking paper-"

"Was not your fault either. Castle-"

"I saw it on a newsstand on the way home," he mutters, rubbing at his eyes. "I bought all of them to get them off the shelf, and then I called Paula on the drive back, tried to get it under control, but there was little she could do. It was too late anyway. They were published nearly a month ago and it gave him enough time to sic his bloodhounds on us. More than enough. I let us get too comfortable."

"You couldn't have predicted there would be press at the airport," she tries to placate him, remembering the blurry image Bracken had thrown in her lap of the two of them. She hadn't been recognizable with her head down, face shielded by a curtain of blonde hair and blocked by the broad wall of his shoulder, but although grainy, Castle's identify had been decipherable despite his disguise of a baseball cap and sunglasses.

"I should have put more effort into changing my look too, I should have-"

"Rick, it's done," she states, going for firm, but sounding just as weak as she feels to even her own ears. "We're equally to blame, now shut up."

He huffs a laugh that is choked with tears and she uses their joined hands to urge him in closer.

"Kate," he murmurs, a warning, but she growls in response, tugs harder.

"Please," she tries, and she doesn't even care how pathetic it makes her feel to resort to begging him. She's tired and the agony consuming her side is flaring up again, radiating from the stab wound to set her insides to flame; she just wants her husband curled around her so she can sleep. So they can both rest.

He sighs, unable to deny her, and scoots in closer on her hospital bed, but one of his legs still hangs off the edge and that just won't do.

"Move me."

"No," he says, stern, but still wavering. "I could make it worse and-"

"Castle," she groans with impatience, listening to him huff in frustration. "Just ease me over a little so you can have enough room."

There's a moment of quiet contemplation before he relents once more, slipping an arm under her knees, the other beneath her neck, and transferring her a few inches closer to the opposite side of the bed.

She hisses at the hot rocket of pain that shoots up and down her side, but then he's lying beside her, pressed to her good side and infusing her with warmth, whispering soft words into her temple that penetrate the dull roar of pain rushing through her.

"It's really over now," she catches him murmuring into her hair while he strokes the layer of long bangs from her forehead. "We can go home soon."

"Home," she echoes on an exhale, turning towards the sound of his voice and peeling her eyes back to meet his. They still carry such weight, flecks of indigo clouding the beautiful cerulean, but the darkness doesn't overpower his irises any longer. The light is slowly breaking through.

"Sleep, Kate."

She shakes her head even though it costs her, the dull throb of a headache circling her skull like a vice, and squeezes the fingers resting near her hip.

"No, no, wait," she groans, fighting against the fog clouding her thoughts and weighing down her body. "What happened to the stuff I used to keep on my desk? From the Twelfth?"

Rick's brow furrows, but he answers her nonetheless.

"I - the boys packed it up a long time ago, Alexis picked it up, stored it at the loft for us. It's likely in our old bedroom." His head tilts in confusion. "Why?"

"The evidence. Evidence to convict Bracken," she rasps, clutching his fingers, willing him to understand. "It's in the elephants."

Castle's eyes fall, a flame of guilt spreading through the tired irises.

"Kate, we can't convict Bracken. I shot him, remember? And I'm - I'm not sorry that he's dead, but I'm sorry that I took that from you. The justice you wanted."

She wants to shake him, if only to disassemble the ashamed expression from his face.

"Castle, I told you," she mumbles, forcing the words to exit clearly from her lips despite the effort it takes. "I want you more, want this more."

She eases her hand down to rest delicately upon her stomach and the tiny life cushioned beneath.

She moans in a delighted change of pleasure rather than pain when his mouth touches her, careful but insistent, hopeful. She wishes she could drag him down on top of her, arch into the encompassing heat of him and convince him with something more than words that they're going to be okay.

Castle brushes another kiss to the corner of her mouth before drifting back to lie comfortably beside her, bracing his cheek on the hand elevated by his propped elbow and gazing down at her.

"We may not be able to convict him, but we have the truth," she slurs, blinking rapidly when she realizes her eyes have slid shut. "We can still expose everything. When we get home. When do we go home, Castle?"

"As soon as you're further into your recovery, love," he mumbles, his voice dropping into that soothing, low tone he always uses to calm and put her to sleep.

"Still your wife?" she pushes out, finally allowing her eyes to flutter closed and giving up on her attempts to force them open again.

She feels Castle's hand encircling one of hers again, dragging it to his lips, and dusting a kiss over the ring still on her fourth finger.

"Of course, Beckett. Can't get out of this marriage that easily," he teases her and she knows the grin that spills across her lips is loose and dopey, but she can't help it.

"Don't want out," she hums, curling her fingers at his lips when he presses them to her palm, trying to catch his kiss. "Want you forever."

He chuckles and she grunts at him for laughing at her, but then he's moving in closer to her again, blanketing the uninjured side of her body with warmth and lowering their intertwined hands to his chest, her knuckles resting above the beat of his heart.

"I want you for forever too, now get some sleep."

"Mmkay," she yawns, turning her head to bump her nose to his chin, ignoring the lingering scent of blood and regret on his skin, inhaling the aroma of home he still carries instead.

She drifts to sleep with him at her side, his free hand tracing patterns over her stomach.


	11. Chapter 11

_"Just close your eyes_  
><em>You'll be alright<em>  
><em>Come morning light<em>  
><em>You and I'll be safe and sound"<em>

_-Safe & Sound, Taylor Swift/The Civil Wars_

* * *

><p><strong>Three months later:<strong>

* * *

><p>"You okay?"<p>

Kate glances up from the array of boxes surrounding her on the bedroom floor to see Castle in the doorway, still looking exhausted from the long flight over, from the fight they'd had to put up just to get from the town car into the building of the loft, but still so handsome and admittedly happier since they had walked through his front door.

"Yeah, it's just…"

"Weird?" he supplies, stepping inside and maneuvering around the boxes to take a seat next to her on the floor, propping his back against the mattress of the tidy, unused bed behind them.

"A little," she shrugs, tracing her index finger over a box labeled SHOES in Alexis' neat handwriting. His daughter and Kate's father had packed up most of her apartment and moved it into his loft instead of a storage locker like she would have expected. "I just never expected to be back. It feels like the last time we were here-"

"Was another lifetime."

"Stop finishing my sentences, Castle," she murmurs with a grin that he returns with a cheeky smile.

"Fine, I'll stop only because I know it makes you want me at an unbearable level." He receives one hell of an eye roll for that one. "But I know what you mean. I'm - I'm actually afraid to unpack our bags," he laughs, but his underlying nerves constrict the sound, making it tight and unnatural.

They had just flown in from Russia a few hours ago and to finally come back to a place that had always been home, but to still carry the fear that had become an essential part of keeping them both alive, has made the return bittersweet. Though, having Alexis greeting them at the airport with the most brilliant smile Kate's ever seen while tears of joy streaked down her cheeks had softened the state of unease that had descended from the plane with them. Watching his daughter race towards them and throw herself into Castle's arms, holding to him for a good five minutes before doing the same to her, had made it feel real. They were finally home and she had stained the shoulder of his daughter's leather jacket with tears of her own.

After they had managed to push past the press and into the safety of his building, into the safety of his loft, she was met with the arms of his mother and then her dad, both of their parents embracing their children with relief and gratitude. Catching up and reminiscing had consumed the majority of their evening, gushing from Martha and soft, teary eyes from her father at the sight of Kate's stomach had followed and it had been nice, comforting, but Kate had retired to their old bedroom early, inadvertently spiking a hint of worry in Castle's eyes.

Jim was spending the night in the guest room, Alexis opting to stay as well, up in her old bedroom where Castle had just come from after going to check on her for the third time that night, and now it was just the two of them again. It's a relief, to be alone with him, which elicits a small stab of guilt in her chest, but the ambush of greetings from their loved ones after a near year of only her partner at her side was quite the change and she's still trying to adjust.

"We don't have to unpack," she murmurs, flicking her gaze between him and the two duffels sitting zipped and untouched near the closet.

Castle takes a deep breath, but shakes his head.

"We don't have to run anymore, we don't have to be ready to take off in the middle of the night," he states, more to himself than to her, but she nods nonetheless. "We're staying here and we should unpack."

"It's over," she confirms, reminds, tangling their fingers and humming the mantra she sometimes whispers to him in the night when he wakes breathless and sweaty from a nightmare. "It's over and we're safe."

She's unable to help the small smile that spills across her lips when their wedding bands clink. He wants to marry her again, here in New York, in his backyard in the Hamptons, surrounded by their family and friends. He loved Sara Rodgers, he had told her on the plane just like he had plenty of times before, but he was ready to finally marry Kate Beckett.

"But Kate, we don't have to stay here, in New York, if it isn't what you want," he murmurs, squeezing her fingers. "We could always move somewhere else, keep traveling the world if that would make you happy."

"Castle," she huffs, but he squeezes harder.

"I'm serious. I know you want to go back to our place in France sometime."

She sighs. "I do, but - but not now. I do want to be here, Rick, it's just… it still feels surreal. But it feels good too, good to be home."

Relief floods his eyes at that. "Yeah?"

"You know this will always be home. It's where we both grew up, where we met and fell in love," she adds with a ridiculous blush staining her cheeks that makes him puff with happiness. He loves it when she gets sentimental, when she gives him her words. The last year has reminded her just how much words mean to him, how much he needs to hear them, and she's become better at expressing them. "It's where I want to raise our family."

"Speaking of... how is the little guy?" Castle murmurs at the mention of their baby and Kate shoots him a glare that has a sly grin tugging at his lips.

"It's a girl, Castle. I told you I can _feel _it," she insists, smoothing her palm over the barely noticeable bump of her stomach.

Rick scoffs, but covers her hand, his teasing smirk going soft.

"We'll see who's right in just a few more months."

"So you don't want to know?" she challenges, her brow quirking. She had actually believed he would want to learn their baby's gender as soon as the option became available, but leave it to Rick Castle to continue surprising her.

He shrugs beside her.

"I don't know yet. I want it to be a surprise, but I also want to know so we can be prepared," he admits, brushing his thumb back and forth over the loose, flowing fabric covering lower abdomen.

"Dying to get started on decorating the nursery?" she hums and he scoffs at her again, but his eyes light up at the idea. They haven't been able to do much planning for their 'peanut', as Castle had taken to calling it since her second ultrasound. They had told Alexis during a Skype call a month after Kate was released from the hospital, took the time to do the same with her father and Martha as well, but otherwise, they hadn't indulged in the luxury of planning ahead. They hadn't even known if they would be coming home to New York again or if this child would be born in another European country.

"We could make it gender neutral," she suggests quietly, seriously this time. "Maybe go look at paint colors after… after we're settled."

Castle untangles their hands to lace an arm around her shoulders, lifting his hand to card his fingers through her darkening hair and rub the back of her skull.

"I'd like that," he murmurs, hope sparkling in the deep blue of his irises and Kate shifts in closer, bumping her nose, her smile, against the clean shaven skin of his jaw. He was getting better, healthier, slowly looking less haunted with each passing day of the last three months and finally allowing himself to heal.

After Bracken's death, she had feared her husband, the man she loved, may be gone forever, replaced by a hollow shell of a person, eaten alive by guilt and torment. That fear still rose to the surface at times, but not nearly as often. Acceptance was never an easy pill to swallow, but no matter how many panic attacks and night terrors he suffered, she was always there to remind him that he did what he had to, for both of them.

Burke helped remind him too. They both saw her therapist now, mostly through phone calls and video chats due to the distance, but their first appointment in his office was in a week.

But there's still a lot to do aside from unpacking, prepping a nursery, and a doctor's appointment. They both have to testify in court soon, the main reason for their return.

Once she had completed a week and a half of healing in the hospital, she had been cleared for release, but they had chosen to remain in Russia for another three months for Kate's recovery, staying close to medical resources, her physical therapist, and her OB. But she was healed now, mostly, and their testimonies in Bracken's case have been deemed as vital in order to clear both Kate and Rick's names of any and all murder charges for good.

Coming back, coming home, had been… terrifying. The idea of returning to the place where their lives had initially been turned upside down leaving her panicking in the bathroom of their apartment the morning of their departure, but she had forced the unnecessary apprehension down, forced herself to stop being a coward. The threat had been removed, there was nothing to fear.

And besides, this was what she had been waiting for – to expose the truth, to claim justice for her mother, and it provided her with a welcome sense of exhilaration to picture playing that cassette tape in court, having the truth spill from Bracken's own mouth.

Kate straightens at the thought, sitting up and rising to her knees. Castle doesn't speak, merely watching as she scans the labeled boxes until she comes across one labeled KATE'S DESK.

She cuts the tape that seals the box closed with her thumbnail, flipping the lid open and – and there they are, right on top and waiting for her.

Her fingers curl around the middle elephant as she sits back on her heels and sure enough, when she shakes the train of porcelain figurines, something rattles inside. Kate takes a breath and carefully wiggles the removable top of the middle elephant until it pops free. The little black cassette tape sits visible and tempting inside.

Kate glances back at him, watching her, waiting with a bated breath.

"Tomorrow," she whispers, placing her mother's elephants back inside the box. "We'll listen to it together?"

"Together," he confirms, standing from the floor, grimacing at the audible pop of his knees, and reaching for her hand. Kate accepts his outstretched fingers and allows him to haul her up, doing her best not to wince at the still present pull of the newest scar stretched across her side. So many scars.

Of course he notices, but doesn't comment, doesn't give her one of his concerned looks. He simply splays his free hand over the entirety of the healed wound, spreading heat through her skin and unfurling through her bloodstream. Kate hums, her attention being tugged towards him with ease, and lifts on her bare toes to kiss his lips, tasting the sensation of contentment on his mouth, of home on his tongue. Doesn't matter where they are, he's always home.

"Tonight," he mumbles, brushing his knuckles over her stomach, caressing the tiny bump. "Let's unpack."


	12. Chapter 12

**Epilogue**

* * *

><p>"Shh, baby girl," he can hear Kate whispering as he climbs the stairs, leaving the small gathering of their friends and family behind to find her in their daughter's room, holding the three year old in her arms, swaying her back in forth.<p>

"Sing," Olivia whimpers into her mother's shoulder and Castle hangs back in the shadows of the hallway, listening to Kate begin one of the many lullabies their daughter often asks for. "No, my Russian lullaby."

He smirks when Kate huffs, but even with her back turned to him, he knows she's smiling. Olivia is normally quite the independent child and she had proven it tonight, playing the life of the party and earning all of their guest's attention, as usual, but once she grew tired, she got a little fussy, a little needy, especially for her mother.

"Picky," Kate scolds softly, nuzzling her daughter's cheek and eliciting a giggle from the girl.

"Sleep, sleep, sleep," Olivia starts the lullaby, but the words aren't in English. He hadn't known this about her until after they had settled in Russia for a brief period three years ago, but Kate knows plenty of music in other languages, especially Russian, and his daughter's favorite lullaby was one Kate had been singing to her long before she was even born.

Kate picks up from where Olivia left off, carrying her over to the rocking chair from her infant days still placed in the corner of the room, closest to the window, and taking a seat with Olivia still in her lap.

Castle continues to watch as Kate sings her to sleep in the soft glow of the moonlight and city glow, her voice a soothing melody as it curls around the foreign words, the harsh but tender dialect, which has even him feeling sleepy and sated.

"I know you're there, Castle," Kate hums, tugging him from his daze and out of the shadows to step inside the bedroom.

Olivia's half lidded eyes flicker up from her mother's shoulder and she extends her small hand out for him, wiggling her fingers.

"Come sing with us, Daddy."

"You know I butcher the Russian, Doodlebug," he reminds her as Kate rolls her eyes at the nickname that she pretends to hate.

"Then tell me my story," she sighs, already drifting in Kate's arms, but she's just like her mother, fighting slumber but succumbing to sleep under the sound of his voice.

"About the Rodgers?" he prompts as he joins the two of them, propping himself next to the window while Olivia curls into a ball in Kate's lap.

His wife grunts at the knee she gets to her ribs, but strokes Olivia's growing chestnut hair back once her head settles against her chest.

"Yes, I love their story. Wanna write stories like you some day, Daddy. About Rick and Sara," she slurs and Kate shares a smirk with him.

"You will, Peanut. You already write such good stories," he promises her and it's true. Their daughter has an incredible imagination, always eager to create her own new world to exist in, always excited to share her stories with him and her mother. Kate's taken to displaying the crayon born tales on the fridge, but they're slowly running out of room on the stainless steel doors. Olivia may have been blessed with his wife's looks and passion, her integrity, but she's definitely inherited his ability to tell a good story.

Olivia smiles and nuzzles Kate's neck, closing her eyes.

"Story, Daddy," she mumbles and he huffs, squeezes her boney knee, but begins his narration, making it through only a few sentences about Rick and Sara and the dragon they fought so hard to defeat before Olivia's breathing evens and she goes limp in Kate's arms.

"You know, what if we took her with us to the French castle she's heard so much about?" he asks after a few moments of peaceful silence, keeping his voice low and hushed to refrain from waking their snoozing daughter.

Kate's reaction is subtle, contemplative, but mostly unreadable. They've gone back to France at least once a year since they permanently returned to New York. Summers in the Hamptons, winters in France, but they had never taken Olivia to the French countryside with them, using the opportunity to allow his mother and her father some quality time with their granddaughter and to spend some time alone for a week. But Olivia would love it, he knows she would, just like her mother did, and she was old enough, turning four in the fall.

"I don't know," Kate hedges, rising smoothly from the rocking chair and transferring Olivia to the twin sized bed, tucking her in beneath the ocean blue bedspread with Castle's help.

Their daughter is obsessed with the sea at the moment, longing to be a combination of a mermaid and a pirate, and her room currently matches her desires. The walls like waves, starfish shaped glow stickers clinging to the ceiling, and her companion of a stuffed dolphin guarding the foot of her bed, but even in her slumber, she still reaches for the white, plush elephant Kate had picked out for her only days before her birth and clutches it to her chest by reflex.

Kate smiles down at their daughter, sparing one last stroke of her hand over her forehead before standing straight and leading him back into the hallway.

"It's just a thought," he assures her, not trying to pressure. France is a beautiful place for them, but it is also a place where they sought refuge during their time on the run, and he knows why Kate tries to keep those times separate from their daughter, at least until she's much older.

Olivia will know the truth one day, whether they like it or not, but not yet. Not while she's still young and innocent and still believes the story of their lives is nothing more than a fairy tale.

"It's a good idea," she concedes on a sigh, leaning back against the wall.

He can hear the talk of his mother downstairs, entertaining the last of their guests for the evening and regaling them all with her latest acting adventures. Martha no longer lived with them at the loft, having moved out a few months before Olivia was born, but she visited often and he's grateful for her consistent presence in his daughter's life, in their life. Olivia looked up to his mother, her admiration for her diva of a grandmother almost as strong as her regard for her older sister, who had thankfully stuck close to home after her graduation from Columbia.

All of his family in one place - it's everything he could want.

"Do you remember our first wedding?" she whispers suddenly and his lips quirk.

"You think I'd ever forget?" he chuckles, stepping in close, blocking her against the wall with his hands on her waist. He remembers marrying her in a tiny town square in the rural village clear as day, remembers the shine of her blonde hair and the glistening sparkle in her hazel eyes when he'd slid the wedding band on her finger. It still resides there, a partner to the slim band he'd added on their second wedding day. "One of the best days of my life."

Her lips spread wide and she draws him down with fingers clutching his collar to smear a kiss to his mouth.

"Almost as romantic as our actual wedding," she muses and he remembers that too, finally seeing her draped in her mother's dress while she was escorted down the aisle with her father at her side and Olivia toddling along after her.

"What's with the wedding talk all of the sudden?" he teases, brushing his thumbs back and forth over her prominent hipbones. "Still hoping to marry in every country?"

Kate swats at his chest, but her cheeks are beaming with amusement in the darkness.

"It's just my favorite memory we made there," she shrugs, her hand on his chest traveling up to curl at his nape. "And I know the reason we ended up there was… less than ideal, but it turned out to be one of the most beautiful times in my life."

"Kate," he murmurs, swallowing past the threatening lump in his throat. It always takes him off guard when she shares her rare, sentimental side with him like this, steals his words.

"Taking Olivia there, allowing her to experience the magic of it… it would make it even more special."

Excitement and wonder come alive in his chest and he wraps his arms around her waist, draws her in closer.

"So, this winter?"

She nods, lacing her arms around his neck and stroking her fingers through the fine hairs at the base of his skull.

"Maybe Dad could come too, so we could still have some time to ourselves," she hums, her lips curling in a seductive grin, and oh yes, brilliant idea. One of his favorite traditions they'd inadvertently made in France was spending some quality time with her in the lake when the temperature allowed, and he would hate to compromise on that. "Now c'mon, we should get back to your party, birthday boy."

"Wait," he murmurs, resting his forehead to hers and closing his eyes. It's his birthday and she organized a party for him, all of their family and closest friends gathered in their home to celebrate, and it still leaves him breathless sometimes, how far they've come. "Just another minute."

Three years ago, he had been celebrating his birthday with her in Russia, hardly able to smile despite her best efforts to make the day special.

Kate indulges his request, relaxing further in his arms, and trails her fingertips along the shell of his ear.

"I love you," she whispers, nudging her nose into his, and when his eyes slip open, their lashes twine. "Thank you again."

"Kate, stop-" he starts, but she cuts off his protest with her lips once more, a feather soft touch to his mouth that chokes him up.

"It's all because of you," she breathes into the millimeter of space between them. "All of this, everything you did-"

"I'd do it all again," he murmurs, tightening the arms at her waist. Every terrifying, horrible, exhilarating second of it – he'd do it again in a heartbeat for her.

"I know you would," she replies, lips dusting over his as she speaks. "And I'd follow you to the ends of the earth all over again, baby."

He chuckles, nipping playfully at her bottom lip when she joins in with her own soft laughter, and she squeezes the arms around his neck, sinking deeper into his embrace while he rests his chin to the rounded edge of her shoulder, listening to the joy float from downstairs and to the steady throb of her heartbeat in his ear.

They stay like that for a long moment, standing outside of their daughter's bedroom, finding peace, finding sanctuary where its always remained within one another.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thank you so much to all who read, followed, favorited, and reviewed this story. I'm sincerely grateful to each and every one of you. **

**And so many thank you's to Nadia, who not only provided the initial inspiration for this fic and the striking cover art to go along with it, but also showed unrelenting support to it and to me. This is your story and I hope it was everything you imagined it would be.**

**I'd love to hear your feedback.**


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